Skeptics And True Believers

Thank you, everyone for all the great feedback. I hope you like this chapter! There's a surprise for you at the end :)

Someone, somewhere said some things
that may've sparked some sympathy,
but don't believe.
Don't believe a word you've heard about me.

The rain pounds the roof of my car, like Nature itself is punishing me for my inattention. I accept the punishment, because I deserve it and if Vera dies there is no penalty that will be enough for me. My car door is still ajar as I transfer Vera's limp body into the seat next to me, my shirt still sticking to her bloody arms. I clumsily buckle the seat belt, thinking that with my luck we would get in a car crash. It takes me three tries to start the car, and then I am off with no regard to speed limits.

Addison sleeping with Mark is nothing in the face of this, because if Vera killed herself on my watch there is no way Addison will ever forgive me. She desecrated our marriage. I will have utterly destroyed both of our lives. The only thing I have to be thankful for is that Addison's penthouse is close to Seattle Grace.

As I drive, images pervade my mind, feeding the guilt that consumes me. Vera in a ribboned pink dress, bending over fluffy white cake at her seventh birthday, the birthday she may never get to now. Vera, strutting across the stage, eighteen years old and beautiful with a diploma in her hand. She may never even make it to high school, because of me. Vera gliding down the aisle in white, looking remarkably like Addison as I prepare to give her away to another man.

This tragic death cannot be her fate.

I pull up in a spot usually reserved for ambulances, not caring that this could result in serious traffic fines. Time stands still as I burst into the ER, my half dead and bleeding daughter in my arms.

"Shepherd?" I have to admire Bailey's calm competence. "What happened?"

I lay Vera down on the white gurney provided, trying not to notice how she stains it red, and whisper, "She tried … she tried to … she cut herself." I cannot bring myself to let go of the bed.

"Okay. Derek, listen to me," Bailey says as she tugs it from my hands. I think I realize in some tiny, unoccupied part of my brain that it is the first time she has ever used my first name. "We're going to do our best to save her, all right?"

They wheel her toward trauma two at breakneck speed, and I glimpse Izzie already inside as Bailey takes her in. I try to follow but find myself confronted by Burke's unmovable strength. "Derek," he rumbles. "You can't go in there."

"Yes I can," I pant. "I have to. I have to, because if she dies because of me …" I leave him to fill in the end of that sentence.

"Page Addison Shepherd," Burke commands a nearby nurse before turning back to me. "I cannot let you in there, Derek, I'm sorry. You know the rule about family; your presence could interfere with us saving her life." I ignore him and try to push in anyway, but he is several inches taller and stops me after a brief struggle. "Go sit down," he says. "We'll let you know as soon as we know anything."

Defeated, I sink against a wall nearby, remorse burning a hole through me. This must be a dream. It cannot be happening. Dr. Nguyen hurries in a minute later, tying on a scrub cap, and as he passes me he pats my shoulder briefly. Then he disappears into the room where I am not allowed to go.

Someone joins me in my silent vigil, and I look in surprise to find Cristina and George. "She's an amazing kid, Dr. Shepherd," George tells me. "She'll make it."

"Vera is young, her heart is strong," Cristina says, possibly believing this is actually some comfort to me. "The odds are in her favor." And, strangely, I do feel a bit better. At least until Addison rushes into the ER three minutes later.

"What happened?" she asks the room at large. "Derek, why was I called down here in the middle of surgery?" she wants to know. Her sharp eyes take in my tortured expression, Cristina and George's faces, and I can see her adding up the clues in her head, but she won't believe it until I say it.

"Vera," I manage after a minute.

"What happened? Don't mess with me, Derek. Just tell me where the hell my daughter is!" Addison's voice attracts the attention of doctors, nurses and patients alike, highlighting our catastrophe in too-bright, vivid colors.

"Vera … tried … to … commit suicide," I say in an anguished voice.

Addison's entire body goes rigid, and emotions flash across her face; disbelieving, panicked, angry, scared. It takes a minute for her to absorb this information. "No. No. You're … you're lying. She's at home. She's sleeping. She has to be!" Addison says, becoming more hysterical by the second, her salmon scrubbed form frozen in position. Denial in the face of her very worst fear is the only thing she has left.

"I'm sorry," I tell her.

"That just can't be … wait, you said she tried? So she's alive? Is she alive? God dammit Derek, answer me!" Addison yells.

"I don't know," I admit. "They wouldn't let me in …" But Addison completely disregards this. How she knows which door Vera is behind I have no idea, except for maternal instinct, I suppose. She bangs on the door, the wood frame completely supporting her weight, and the sight is heart-wrenching. Burke opens it, sees her, and tries to close it again, but Addison will not be denied.

"Vera! Get the fuck off me; I want to see my daughter!" In the end, it takes four men, Burke, Dr. Nguyen, Alex Karev, and a male nurse to restrain the hysterical Addison and return her to me, although I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with her.

"Where were you," she demands to my dismay a minute later. "I told you to watch her every minute!"

"I – I was," I stutter.

"Probably on the phone with your girlfriend," Addison accuses with vindictive contempt, throwing her arms in the air and her words ring so loudly of the truth that I do not deny it. "Well, I'm glad to know your daughter means so much to you Derek, that's just lovely!"

I think she's glad that there's finally something she can blame on me. At least that's what I tell myself, because it's agonizing to stomach Addison staring at me with so much hate. "It's not like I neglected her, I just …" But I have no real defense, and Addison shatters whatever excuses I do have.

"What about the word suicide did you not understand?" she wants to know.

"Look, Addie. I screwed up. I majorly screwed up and I doubt you hate me more than I hate myself right now," I say, trying to imbue my words with some sort of contrition she will actually believe.

Addison paces, hands threaded through her fiery hair, pulling and yanking, groaning from sheer frustration and helplessness. Every footfall is purposeful, although it takes her nowhere, and the soles of her expensive sneakers will be worn down by the end of the night. "You messed up?" she asks. "What about what I messed up, I was Satan then, huh? Dammit, if I could leave you right now like you left me I would do it a hundred times over."

"I know you would," I say, standing with my arms held out in surrender and taking a step closer to try and restrain her so all the doctors and nurses in this ER can get their work done without her yelling.

"How could you?" she yells a second later. "I've tried but I can't fucking understand how this happened!" Addison is not a violent person, although she does occasionally throw shoes at me when she's angry. So maybe she is. I'm not sure. But when she comes at me I grab her wrists so she cannot hit me like she so obviously wants to. We both stand there, panting, fear and anger dancing a tantalizing, barely balanced dance in our perceptions.

"If you don't stop this and calm down, you're going to lose the baby," I tell her quietly.

This finally seems to penetrate her angry maelstrom, deflating her rapidly, because losing two children is positively unthinkable. Addison sinks down beside me, and a river of tears replaces her livid curses. I didn't know anyone could sob that hard and given the choice I would have chosen never to see it. Addison's body heaves feebly; she is probably exhausted by her pregnancy and her surgery and her recent tirade, but I fear her tears will never stop as I maneuver her so she is lying in my lap.

We sit like that as minutes wax and wane, rearing their ugly, empty faces and still nothing is heard. That is good, I suppose, since it means Vera has not died yet, but also bad because it also means she has not been saved. Addison should have run out of tears and fallen into slumber long ago, but anxiety denies her the right and keeps her on edge. Me? I'm burning from the inside out.

It seems hours, but is probably only a few minutes, before Meredith shows up and makes her way over to us hesitantly. Cristina and George remain a few feet away, but Meredith ignores them and me, instead looking straight at Addison, who cannot summon up enough energy to glare. "Is there anything I can do?" she wants to know.

I shake my head mutely, and Addison doesn't reply at all. It feels strange that those who had eschewed us a few short weeks ago are proffering their aid now, but there is a lot strange about this night and all I really want to know or think about is my daughter being alive.

"She's going to be okay," Addison tells me about ten minutes later. "You know what Vera means? It means faith."

"It's just a name, Addison, it doesn't mean anything," I say thoughtlessly, and feel like an ass the next minute when she begins crying harder. Scrambling for something, anything I can do to repair the gaping hole I made in her assembled hope, I say what is probably the stupidest thing I could have said, besides my former comment. "Do we know whether it's a boy or a girl?" I ask, fingers skating tenderly over her bump.

"No," she sighs. "I was kind of waiting … or hoping, I guess, that you might become more involved and find out with me at the next appointment. I mentioned it, but you were really focused on some surgery …" Her voice is a brave attempt at nonchalance, but it doesn't quite make it. I remember that surgery. The reason I obsessed over it was because Meredith had finally spoken to me again that day after finding out about Addison. Just when I thought I could sink no lower.

"If Vera … when Vera gets better, we'll all go," I promise fervently, seeking to make up for even a fraction of the ground I have lost. "Do you have any ideas for names?"

"Well, I was thinking if it's a boy, we could name him Caleb, you know, after Dr. Nguyen, since he's helped with Vera so much. Caleb Christopher, maybe. If it's a girl … I want to name her Rosalie." I cannot do more than nod, my chin brushing Addison's ruby tresses as I do.

We are silent for a while, both trapped in macabre thoughts from which we cannot escape. "Her favorite color was pink," Addison says so softly that I cannot be sure that I have heard her.

"What?" I ask.

"Vera's favorite color. It was – it's pink. Her favorite animals are pandas," she says, sending the words out for all to hear.

"Are you … are you making a eulogy?" I ask, my voice cracking on the word.

"I'll never be able to do it if I don't do it now. If she dies, I just … it will be impossible. And it's better for me to walk in happier times, at least in thought, than to contemplate my daughter dying in there."

I don't know what to say to that, so I respond in turn, "She used to watch Monsters, Inc over and over again, and she still has all the words memorized."

"When she was three, she held up a sesame seed and asked me if we could plant a hamburger tree," Addison chuckles.

"She liked to watch thunderstorms from the balcony overlooking Central Park, no matter how many times we told her not to," I remember.

"Her first imaginary friend was named Lettuce. Except when she said it, it sounded more like 'Wettish,'" Addison says.

"Last Easter, when Weiss dressed up as the Easter bunny for her, she said 'Uncle Weiss, why are you wearing that silly costume?' She wasn't fooled at all," I sigh. If only time could be rewound. But time is like fire, greedily consuming every second, and they are never to be had again.

"She loved to dance alone in the living room, twirling around and around, when she thought no one was watching," Addison contributes.

"And she still will," comes a voice from above our position against the wall. It is Dr. Nguyen, exhausted and haunted looking, but there is something in his eyes, some flicker of hope that makes my heart soar.

She still will. Certainly that phrase has the significance I am imagining? What else could it mean, if not that? Still, hoping so desperately only to be let down would be indescribably excruciating.

Addison staggers to her feet; her ungainly shape, caused by the baby, nearly makes her lose balance. Dr. Nguyen catches her elbow before I can, and that's when it dawns on me. I want to be doing that. For the rest of my life.

If Addison lets me live, however. But if Vera survived, I suppose the odds are pretty good now.

"It's okay," Dr. Nguyen says to us. "It's going to be okay. Vera lost a lot of blood, and she coded three times, but she's stable now."

I hear the catch in his voice, disclosing to me and Addison that things are not as okay as he promised. "What aren't you telling us?" Addison asks, having noticed it also, and she steps forward, as if yanked by invisible strings toward our child.

"Vera is in a coma," Dr. Nguyen says in a steady voice. "We expect her to fully recover, and there won't be any brain damage or other side effects. We expect her to wake up in a few days; her body has been through an extremely traumatizing ordeal and is internalizing itself for protection."

I blink uncomprehendingly and inhale, wishing to dispel the dream-like quality of tonight's events. Addison, however, doesn't hesitate but pushes past Dr. Nguyen into the room. I follow, needing reassurance that I have truly not caused my daughter's death. What I see is infinitely more comforting than waiting for news, but still tugs at my heart. It's a wonder I can even see Vera in the midst of all those machines.

Addison drops into a chair by her bedside, and I can tell, from fourteen years of knowing her, that she desires to weep in relief but shock is preventing her. When I put a hand to my own cheeks, however, I find them wet. I fall into the chair on Vera's other side only to find the comfort of holding her hand penetrated by the surprise at finding white bandages running the length of her arms, all the way up to her elbows. My stomach twists, and I hold her hand but look away.

My eyes fall on Izzie, who is calmly filling out Vera's chart from her position in the corner, to the doorway, which is occupied by Richard, Dr. Nguyen, Burke, and another doctor I vaguely recognize but can't put a name to. I want remind Richard that I did not tell him he could get out of bed after his surgery, but I decide not to push my luck.

"Derek, Addison?" Dr. Nguyen asks gently. "I know that you must want to spend some time with Vera, but there's something else we need to discuss with you." What now, I want to ask, but I restrain myself.

The unknown doctor crosses the room and lifts Vera's arm, the one I'm holding. I want to pull it back from him, because there is something repulsive about a stranger touching Vera in this state. He yanks the sleeve of her thin hospital gown up to her shoulder. Small purple bruises pepper her arm. "Can you explain this?" he asks.

"Dr. Sigh," Dr. Nguyen says sharply, and I realize this is the first time I have ever heard him angry. There are a lot of firsts tonight. "We've been over this. It's already been established that Vera has some self-destructive tendencies. I've known Addison and Derek for a month, and I know they didn't do this."

"There's no way to know for sure," the other doctor argues, and in my rising hate and resentment I examine him more closely. He is short, an entire head shorter than Dr. Nguyen and I, and has swarthy skin and dark, tidy hair. He speaks with a slight accent, Indian, maybe? "The girl attempted to commit suicide. It may a sign of an unstable home life."

"How can you think that?" Addison asks. "We would never hurt her! I'm a doctor, for goodness sake, and so is my husband."

"And yet she committed suicide in your home when one of you was watching her," Dr. Sigh retorts.

"You can't keep track of children every second, nor shield them from every harm," Dr. Nguyen argues. "I've spoken with Vera. Any depressive and disturbing symptoms were a result of schizophrenia. You're not her doctor and that's all that's going to be said on the matter for now."

"Schizophrenia does not come out of nowhere!" Dr. Sigh practically spits. "It can be an indication of childhood abuse!"

I am about to make an angry reply when Addison stands up, her hand flying to her mouth, looking stunned. "It didn't come from nowhere," she says. "I know what caused it. I can't believe I didn't think of it before."

*~*~*

When I was two and a half months pregnant with Vera, I became severely sick with the flu. It wasn't the normal, forty-eight hour version, where you watch TV and throw up a couple times. My temperature skyrocketed; I couldn't keep anything down and became dehydrated. And I hallucinated, which seems agonizingly ironic now.

Mothers, when pregnant, pass on blood, nutrients, and many other things to the baby. I guess I passed on the hallucinations as well.

Of course, that's not really how it works. But now I can't believe I didn't see it. Studies show that influenza during the first trimester of pregnancy causing schizophrenia is rare but increases the chance of the child having schizophrenia by 700%.

I was so sick, even after the first four days, that I had to be hospitalized, a patient instead of a doctor. Derek stood dutifully by my side, fretting when I ran out of ice chips or moaned in the night. They kept fluids inside me and tried to reduce my temperature, but your immune system changes when you're pregnant, and mine couldn't shake the sickness.

About two and a half weeks into it, they did an ultrasound to check on my developing baby. The first trimester is extremely crucial for a fetus. I was 12 weeks pregnant by that point, but Vera was alarmingly small.

"You need to prepare her," My obstetrician told my husband. I think they assumed I was sleeping in the large white bed, sunlight spilling in through the window. None of my surroundings hinted at despair. "She's going to loose the baby."

"W-what?" Derek stuttered, collapsing beside me. "No. Addie's strong. She can do this."

"She's extremely weak, Dr. Shepherd, and that baby doesn't have much of a chance for survival."

But Vera did survive. I felt jubilant, so lucky to have escaped the sickness with Vera's life as well as my own. But now, six and a half years later, we are paying for that stroke of good fortune.

*~*~*

"Prenatal influenza is linked to schizophrenia," Dr. Nguyen says after Addison finishes her theory. "The problems usually manifest around seven, and Vera will be seven this year."

"That doesn't explain the bruises!" Dr. Sigh argues. "I'm contacting social services!"

"You will do no such thing!" Richard thunders. "This is my hospital and I have known Addison and Derek for twelve years! Neither of them would ever hurt that little girl there!"

Dr. Sigh steps back, left cowering by the awesome power of Richard's voice. "We are often most blind to those we love most," he says, and his expression as he backs over the door threatens that this battle isn't over yet. Burke, to my surprise, lays a hand on my shoulder, and Richard promises that everything will be all right. But everything won't be all right. Somebody's hurting Vera. And we might have almost lost her just to have her taken away again.

"Sorry about that," Richard apologizes. "Dr. Sigh lost his daughter last year in a mugging that went terribly wrong."

Maybe that's the reason for all the palpable abhorrence. My daughter was saved, his was lost, and he thinks I don't deserve it, after stringing along an intern and neglecting my wife and daughter. I don't delude myself that he hasn't heard the gossip.

Vera's comatose state continues, but she is as beautiful as an angel's plaything, her coma defying the fear and pain that have been her constant companions for years. The only movement in the room is her chest rising and falling slowly. Addison and I begin a relentless vigil that spans over several days. We sit on opposite sides of the bed, the wait creating a chasm between her pink-scrubbed form and my guilt-wracked body, still clothed in the jeans and bloody undershirt in which I hurried Vera to the hospital. We sit there hour after hour, thinking or perhaps wishing that our mere presence will break the spell.

The first four days are almost exactly the same. We make a daily ritual of watching Monsters, Inc. Izzie brings many home-baked goods, mostly cakes, and this is the only sustenance Addison and I consume. They're supposed to be for Vera, but they're so beautiful it seems a crime to let them go bad. Burke brings us updates. Cristina spews off encouraging statistics. Meredith hovers nervously, Bailey asks about Vera's childhood, George makes her balloons out of rubber gloves, Adele and Richard bring numerous presents to go along with all the others we are receiving, some from relatives, friends, or old patients.

And as our eyes meet, we have an understanding. Addison and I will sit here until our daughter wakes up, and when she does, we will spin a fairytale bursting of so much magic that she'll never want to leave again.

On the fifth day, however, Richard forces us home, recruiting Bailey's interns to take turns sitting in Vera's room lest she wakes. Addison resists, as I knew she would, but she follows me to my car after we are practically pushed out the door and into the torrential rain. The downpour hasn't stopped since the night I brought Vera in.

The ride to Addison's penthouse strongly resembles the one we took when she first got here, except there is no six year old in the backseat and we are silent for an entirely different reason. I want to speak, to say something comforting like that Vera will wake up soon, but instead I study Addison and the way the misty light shadows and highlights her face, how her beauty has become tragic. My fists clench on the steering wheel.

No words are spoken as we enter the apartment, soaked in dreariness now that Vera is absent. I sink onto the bed and hear the soft tumbling of water against the walls of the shower and Addison's exhausted body. She returns half an hour later, hair dark and dripping and wrapped in nothing but a towel, and I trade places with her.

There is a deep and terrible silence as we settle into the same bed for the first time in five months. Neither of us knows what to say, and sleep will not be summoned, no matter how hard we try. My body aches for Addison, but I am afraid to touch her and find her more breakable than she appears. But I feel something on my arm, a touch as light as a feather, and I turn and find her arm extended across the creamy whiteness of the sheets.

We shouldn't be doing it. Our daughter is in intensive care, in a coma, but maybe that's why we do it. Distraction, in the right setting, carries immeasurable value. Right or wrong, I trail my finger up Addison's arm and she shivers and rolls closer. Bare skin brushes bare skin, and I cannot contain myself upon discovering she is naked, petal-soft skin damp underneath the sheets. My hands glide over the contours of her body, her collar bones straining against the tight skin of her chest, our baby pushing out from her body, the ripples of individual vertebrae in her spine.

I push myself up on my elbows and Addison scoots under me. The bump is still small enough that she fits there. It's been five months and we both desperately need this. Our hearts are racing at a pace so fast that I know there is no halting now. Because as our lips touch, separate, and touch again, I find redemption. I press kisses along her jawline, her hands are exploring my chest but soon travel lower. We are losing ourselves in this ardent tangling of limbs and when I finally slide inside her and feel her gasp against the tender skin underneath my ear, something on this godforsaken earth is finally right.

We fall asleep as close as two people can be.

Addison is up the second dawn breaks the next morning and as we head back to the hospital, it is clear that something has changed, something has shifted. Addison brings several of Vera's things for when she wakes up, a few toys left undestroyed and her drawing materials, and as I take them from her so she can get out of the car, our hands touch and don't stop touching as we enter.

I'm sure it is the first thing Meredith notices when she comes to give us an update, or a non-update, really, because nothing has happened. I want to say something, an explanation perhaps, but Addison pulls me away before I can.

Vera is as pale and unmoving as ever as we settle in, Addison discards her coat and I pull out a clipboard on a case I was assigned before our familial crisis. The patient is post-op now, not a suture or neuron out of order, and Addison only stares at Vera, so I pick up her notepad, hoping not to find more disturbing drawings. It is the one she has taken to the Seattle Grace daycare on the few occasions we've left her here.

There is a child's writing, with no more than a year or two of experience on the margin of the first page on which Vera has drawn some tulips. I squint and then push the book away from me; it's not Vera's handwriting.

Witch, it says.

I bury my head in my hands. Why Vera? What the hell did she ever do wrong to anyone?

*~*~*

The day Vera was diagnosed; we sat opposite the faceless psychiatrist, her head pressed up against my chest, her knee digging uncomfortably into the baby's domain. I expected her to notice, or ask why I was getting so big, but she didn't. All she saw were her visions.

I had always known there was something different about her. Some of the looks she gave Derek and I were so knowing, and her moods were so capricious, that she could go from smiling to a tantrum in a few seconds. Vividly beautiful, like a little sprite with her strange intelligence, sometimes she didn't even seem human.

The thing that sparked our trip to the psychiatrist, despite Derek's continued absence, was me coming home to find Vera tucked away in the corner of our balcony. I told Savvy she could leave and then knelt beside my daughter, relieved to see her playing again. But she wasn't playing, and my potted plants had been ransacked. Vera had made little green plant people, labeled them with the names of her classmates, and stuck pins in them, like some warped childhood form of voodoo.

I was so sure I had heard the psychiatrist wrong when he said, "Schizophrenia," in response to every single one of my questions. I did not know the extent of it then, but after watching the life be sucked from my daughter by the disorder I felt only despair.

Schizophrenia. Derek would know what to do. Schizophrenia. Derek could fix it. But it wasn't Derek and I who fixed Vera; it was her who ended up fixing us.

*~*~*

Dr. Nguyen hurries in a few minutes later to examine it. He has been looking more frazzled by the day, his usually perfect hair mussed, and when I ask he reveals that his wife is expecting not one child, but triplets. He looks so overwhelmed that I hasten to reassure myself. "Are you sure there's only one in there?" I ask Addison.

"Pretty damn sure," she says sarcastically. "Congratulations," she tells Dr. Nguyen in a more amiable tone.

"Thanks," he says in an unsure voice. "Um, Addison, I was wondering … my wife and I were wondering, I know you have a busy schedule and people make appointments with you months in advance, but this is her first pregnancy and she isn't sure what to expect. Will you be her obstetrician?"

"Of course," Addison agrees. He helped save Vera, after all, and I didn't expect any other answer.

"Now, about Vera," Dr. Nguyen says. "She mentioned something one time about the kids at daycare, and I didn't read too far into it, but she said they made her tell them about her hallucinations. Not asked, but made.

"You think they did this?" I ask, eyebrows raised.

Dr. Nguyen is infinitely more careful with Vera's arm than Dr. Sigh was, and as I examine the purple marks more carefully, I see that some of them do indeed look like fingerprints. "I don't think they did this intentionally," Dr. Nguyen explains. "But if they grabbed her, and she tried to run or twist away …"

"Derek and I both had surgeries last week," Addison whispers. "We took her to daycare then, it was one of the only times we did so in Seattle."

"That doesn't explain the other marks though," I say. It can't elucidate the bigger blotches that are found on her legs and abdomen as well.

"It's impossible to know for sure until I talk to Vera, but the bigger bruises almost look … self-inflicted," Dr. Nguyen tells us. "Like she was trying to get something off her, or something." I hate to admit it's possible, but it's better than the alternative, which is Vera being taken, which is still a very real possibility if we can't prove anything.

What had Vera said on the day we met Dr. Nguyen? "Stop it, stop it, stop it! Go away! They're here for me!"

My archenemy, and Vera's godfather, coincidentally, arrives on the sixth day of her coma. Mark's stance in the doorway resembles that of a soldier sneaking through rival territory, not a man entering a hospital room.

I cannot help myself. "Ah, the prodigal adulterer returns," I sneer. I try to restrain the wild hate that rises in me, the desire to pound Mark to a pulp. The only thing that keeps me from doing it is the fact that Mark was right all along: I abandoned my wife and neglected my daughter.

Mark, to his credit, isn't fazed. He looks the same as he did when I found him in bed with Addison five months ago, still the bad-boy good looks and leather jacket (the same one I stepped on that night?), except there is something different in his ice blue eyes. It's concern, and it's for my daughter.

Mark holds out the flowers he is carrying, which are, to my dismay, blood red roses. My mind drifts automatically to that color dripping out of Vera's arms before I can control it. I stand to receive them, because Addison doesn't look like she's going to move any time soon.

"I just want to make sure she's okay," Mark says gruffly, unearthing a stuffed panda and an enormous box of chocolates to go along with the flowers. He looks like he wants to say more, probably something about how I should take better care of Vera, but he doesn't. Instead he turns his eyes to Addison.

"Thanks, Mark," she murmurs, barely able to look at him.

"Addison," he says. I do not want to hear the things contained in her name when he says it, but when she doesn't respond he heads for the door. "Hope she wakes up soon."

The next words that fly out of my mouth are of their own accord, because I never made any conscious decision to say them. But I call after Mark, "Did you see the Yankees game on Sunday?"

"Yeah," he answers, clearly surprised. "It was a good game." And I'm not completely sure, but I think someday maybe I'll forgive my brother. Addison rolls her eyes at us.

On the seventh day, everything changes, and it doesn't change. I don't know how to explain it. I think it starts when Addison sits up suddenly, nearly banging her head on the IV, her hand on her stomach. "This baby's as annoying as you are," she mutters, but her hand finds mine and for the first time, I feel my second child move.

Then we kiss. I'm not sure how it happens, but oh, what a kiss. Her lips press insistently against mine, her hair cascades over my shoulders, and rational though leaves as I take her into my arms. It is a good thing Vera doesn't wake up. Addison trembles after it, and she doesn't seem to know what to do with herself. "Don't do that," she says, "unless you're going to keep doing it forever."

"Oh, I plan to, Mrs. Shepherd," I say with a wicked grin.

She raises an eyebrow. "In fact, I plan to be doing it for the rest of forever," I continue.

"Forever is a very long time, Derek," she says quietly.

"I knew the day I met you that it was going to be forever. Maybe I lost sight of that, maybe we both did, but I haven't forgotten." It is in moments such as these when Addison is most vulnerable, her impressive fortress walls taken down so I can see into her soul. And when our lips meet again, I know I've made the right choice.

On the eighth day, Vera wakes.

Don't be so scared, it's harder for me. Don't be so scared.

Don't worry, this isn't the end. There is going to be one more chapter, since this got too long. So yay! Celebrate! You review, I write. Also, the reason for Vera's attempted suicide will be explained.