Author's Note: Thank you for being patient with this update! The next few updates should be faster. I'm so happy that people are still reading this story after so many years. (For those of you who are changing your minds about the story, you may want to check back when it's all done and see if you want to give it another shot.) Please keep sharing your thoughts with me; they're much appreciated!

oh what a beautiful view/if you were never aware of what was around you

He wakes at dawn with her familiar shape tucked against him, though he can't remember her coming back to the hotel.

She rouses slowly, gives him a tired smile. "Bel was up for a bit, so she knows I left and we'll be back. And she wants to see Max. And I didn't want Max to worry when he woke up without me here, so." She says most of this litany of competing demands in one breath, a curtain of hair masking her expression, then adds: "I wanted to wake up with you, too."

He brushes her hair back from her face, fingers lingering on her sleep-warmed skin.

"I'm glad you came back. But I wish you had texted when you left the hospital."

"Sorry, I'm just…" she looks as exhausted as he feels, really, with faintly blue shadows under her eyes. "I didn't want to wake you. You needed to sleep." She touches the side of his face. "You don't have to worry about me."

He does, though.

But he just nods. "How was she when you-"

"The same. Mostly sleeping, but she passed all the mental status tests when she woke up. Actually, one of the words was turtle, and I think that's what made her ask about Max."

He smiles at this. Maybe mostly because it's either smile or cry.

Addison starts to get up and he reaches for her hand. "Did you see Derek? Did he have any update?"

"No…just Meredith."

"First name basis now?"

"Yeah. We, uh, did the mom thing and now we're on first name basis."

The mom thing. At home, in New York, the mom thing and the dad thing comprise most of their social interactions. She gives him a quick kiss and untangles herself from the sheets, starting to make the bed. He stands to stretch tight muscles, watches her tugging the corners of the duvet and smoothing pillows.

"Addison, leave it, housekeeping will do it."

"I'd rather do it myself."

Max pads in then, holding his stuffed dinosaur, his little face creased with sleep and worry and his eyes bright with unshed tears.

"What's wrong?" Mark kneels in front of his son in the low greyish light. "Max?"

"I don't like it here," he whimpers, and Mark sighs. The uncomfortable tension hanging over all of them, the fear – Max isn't immune to it. He's no different than they are, he's just – smaller. Struck with that thought, he stands with Max in his arms, starts pacing the large room while rubbing his son's back, like he used to when he was a baby fussing during the night. Just like then, he feels Max's little body start to relax against him as he walks.

After a few moments of this Max lifts his head from Mark's shoulder. "I'm better," he declares.

"Oh, you are? Good." Mark kisses his head and lowers him to the floor. "Go tell your mom that."

Max pads across the floor to Addison, who lifts him onto her knee. "The first night somewhere new is always a little strange," she assures him.

She holds him on her lap at the lighted vanity, carefully detaching a lipstick from his grip. It's such a familiar sight in some ways – both kids like to flock around her while she's getting ready, which he supposes is cuter from his perspective. But it's all wrong here with the stark hotel lighting and the strange misty view from the window. Annabel should be here, the tip of her little nose dotted with a dab of cold cream (the only useful thing Addison got from her mother, she's told him).

"Can I see Bel now?" Max asks, as if he's reading his father's mind.

"A little later. She's resting, and Mommy's going to go over there first –"

"I want to go with you!" Max clutches desperately at Addison's blouse and she raises her eyes to Mark for help, stroking her son's hair.

"You're going to stay here with me for a little while, bud," he intercedes. "It's still really, really early. Then we'll go-"

Max scrunches up his face, his surefire pre-scream expression. "No, I want to go now!"

"Hey." Mark lifts him off Addison's lap, holds him at eye level. "What's the rule about hospitals?"

"You have to keep quiet," Max mumbles, and it comes out more like hafta.

"Yeah, there are people there who are really sick, trying to get better, and people working, so you have to keep quiet." He recites the words they've told the kids for years. "And not yell no. I know you know that. So -"

"Is Annabel really sick?" Max interrupts, his blue eyes wide. Mark swallows at the fear in his voice. He sits down with Max on his lap on the foot of the bed.

He glances over at Addison for help. She nods very slightly, her eyes shining.

"Annabel is … well, she's sick right now, buddy, we talked about this, remember. So yeah, she does need her rest."

He relents after that, consistency be damned, and they leave together for the hospital. They can manage this, taking turns with Max and Annabel. And it's not like their son hasn't spent plenty of times in hospitals over the years….

That's different, he reminds himself. Eating lollipops at the nurses' station while some of Manhattan's finest health care professionals fuss over him isn't quite the same thing as being shuffled between parents while your normally energetic sister sleeps in a hospital bed far too big for her.

Max is anxious to see his sister, wriggling in Mark's arms from the moment they step off the elevator, and Mark doesn't have the heart to extract more than a reluctant behavioral promise before uniting his children. Addison goes in first, then gestures for them to follow.

"Is she napping?" Max peers at Annabel.

Addison strokes Annabel's hair away from her forehead. Mark sits down in the chair by his daughter's bed, holding Max on his lap, and for a moment he breathes in what it feels like to sit in one room as a family of four. It shouldn't smell like medicine and sterility, and the blue-grey light is all wrong, but … at least they're together.

Annabel's lashes flutter on her cheeks.

"Bel?" Addison leans close to her, stroking her hair. "You have a visitor."

"Hi," Annabel breathes, sleepy blue eyes focused on her brother.

Max is rigid on Mark's lap and his voice is a reverent whisper as he repeats the same word back to his sister: "Hi."

Mark sees Addison brush at her eyes with the hand not on Annabel.

Annabel's eyes start to slide closed; she's never awake for long.

"I put my animals on your bed, sorry!" Max blurts suddenly.

The corner of Annabel's mouth quirks very slightly. She has Addison's mobile mouth, and Mark has always loved watching her many kinds of smiles: quarter smiles, half smiles, sleepy smiles, teasing smiles. "It's okay, Max," she whispers, and then her lashes flutter again and she's asleep.

Max leans back against his father. "Bel's really tired…?" His voice trails off a bit.

"She's tired. Sleeping will help her get better."

Dr. Robbins comes in to examine Annabel then, with a trail of residents in her wake.

Max leaves without protest for the playroom, hand in a nurse's, and Mark is starting to feel guilty about all the staff helping them so much.

Annabel barely stirs during the exam, but his stomach twists as he watches Dr. Robbins discuss the seizure clock, the delicate surgical timing, with her residents.

He loves both his children, with a fierceness that was both surprising and inevitable in turn, but Annabel came first; it was Annabel who made them a family. It's hard to connect the still, sleeping little girl in the oversized hospital bed with his talkative, thoughtful daughter. Today is one of the two days a week he usually holds morning hours in his private office, which is only two blocks from Annabel's private school. On those mornings, they've developed a tradition of stopping at a café down the street to share a croissant before he drops her off at school. They make a cappuccino dry enough for him and a hot chocolate sweet enough for her and it's their chance to talk, just the two of them.

"Dad?" Annabel looks thoughtful; she carefully picks up her mug of hot chocolate and takes a sip, then pats her mouth with her napkin before continuing. Her table manners are all Addison; Mark imagines they're going to have to work a bit harder with Max.

"Yeah, Bel?"

"How come we don't have grandparents?"

He pauses before responding. She looks so cute in her blue gingham uniform jumper, matching blue cardigan, and blue velvet band holding back her dark hair. The first graders all wear patent leather mary-jane shoes and Annabel is swinging hers, just slightly, against the wrought iron chair leg underneath her. But she looks serious too, watching him for a response.

"Well," he starts, "you know all families are different. Emerson has two dads, and Mabel has a stepmom, and Chloe has a donor sister in California…."

Annabel nods as he lists her classmates. "But…where are they? Are they dead?"

He has to hide a smile at her blunt language. She is the daughter of two doctors, after all. And last year, when the kindergarten goldfish greeted the class belly up one morning, and several of the children cried, didn't Annabel calmly tell them "all bodies break down eventually, it's perfectly natural." Mark had gotten a kick out of sharing that story with his residents.

Mark swallows now. "Well, remember, I've told you my parents live pretty far away, and they're…pretty busy." This is a generous interpretation of the truth; he knows his mother moved to Santa Fe years back, something about the dry air and her health, though he thinks it had more to do with needing a new social calendar. He imagines his father is still popping in and out of his mother's life without warning, splitting time between various properties and women. They haven't expressed any interest in him in years; they were never cruel, just absent, but they slipped through his fingers completely when they left the east coast. For a while, Mark sent occasional updates, which were never acknowledged, and then he just – stopped. He's fairly certain he'd know if one of them died, if only for the prominence of their eventual obituaries. Addison has said much the same thing about her parents; it's one of the many commonalities that has marked their marriages.

"What about Mommy's parents?"

Annabel's been calling them Mom and Dad lately, which sometimes gives Mark a little twinge, but she's just as likely to slip back as well, especially if she's feeling uncertain.

"They're alive," he says carefully. He sees Annabel start to ask a follow-up question – and hopes it's not one that would require him to say they live no more than thirty miles away – and feels a surge of protectiveness that brings on honesty: "But they…weren't very nice to your mom."

Annabel's little brow creases. "Why not?"

"That's a really hard question, sweetheart. It's hard to know why people act … not nice sometimes."

He doesn't like lying to his children, and he is certain they'll have more questions one day. But one look at Annabel's sweet little face, the one spot of chocolate she missed when she was patting her mouth clean, and he is not sure he'll ever be able to tell her that her maternal grandparents cut her mother off completely when they learned of her pregnancy. But not before saying some terrible things – about Addison, about Mark, about the growing life inside Addison who would become Annabel.

"I don't think I would like them if they weren't nice to Mom," Annabel says thoughtfully.

Mark smiles at her and uses his own napkin to dab at the little spot of chocolate next to her mouth. "Dad!" She wriggles away from him. "I can do it," she protests, her rallying cry since she first learned to talk. She is fiercely independent and at the same time so loving that it squeezes his heart.

He thinks of the few pictures he's seen of Addison at Annabel's age, and he thinks of Annabel, and the idea of a small Addison knocking around the cold estate he's seen only a few times, with little parental support or involvement other than dragging her into a toxic web of lies – well, a part of him is glad they never have to talk to them.

Mark hasn't seen Addison's parents since Archer's funeral years ago. When he thinks of them he sees their stiff faces, eyes skating over a heavily pregnant Addison with cool judgment, and feels the way Addison's fingers dug into his arm as he supported her.

If he could, though, he would give his children grandparents. He would give them aunts and uncles and cousins and the kind of lifelong parental friends who become family. If he could, he would give them everything, but as it is he pours everything he has into their little unit of four, and Addison does too, and they become more than the sum of their parts.

"Dad?" Annabel is stirring and the little hand in his curls slightly.

"Bel." He smiles down at her, brushing back her dark hair. "I'm right here."

Addison takes the seat next to Annabel and Mark rests his other hand on her shoulder; it's tense under his fingers, but she tips her head lightly against his arm. They both watch as Annabel drifts back to sleep. Mark is exhausted and thrumming with stress at the same time.

"Coffee?"

Addison nods with a grateful smile, and he walks out the door of Annabel's room directly into Derek.

"Sorry," Mark apologizes automatically, then figures it's probably not the worst word to be the first once he exchanges with his former best friend after all these years.

"It's fine," Derek says, and Mark thinks those are rather unfair words to be Derek's first.

There's so much that he knows he should say, perhaps less he thinks he could say, but the ratio of salt to pepper in this new version of Derek's hair reminds him how much time has already been lost and the winking red numbers in Annabel's room are a constant reminder that time is the one thing they don't have.

So he just says thank you, and his voice comes out gruffer than he intended.

Derek nods, in a not-unfriendly way. Mark wonders if he's heading in to examine Annabel, and if he should …

"It's risky." Derek's words interrupt Mark's thoughts. He's looking through the partially curtained window to Annabel's room. "Even if I can get it all, there's no guarantee the damage won't be … speech, movement, you just don't know. It's never been done in this way before."

"I know," Mark says quietly. He studies the flooring, not looking up until he hears Derek's voice, which is faintly nasal with surprise.

"You don't want me to operate."

Mark's not sure what to say: the two options are either that his misgivings are more obvious than he thought or that Derek can still read him, and neither of those options is particularly easy to stomach.

He doesn't respond.

"Addison convinced you to call me," Derek suggests.

"I didn't say…"

"You didn't have to."

"It's not that I don't want you to operate," Mark says finally, stressing the word you just slightly.

"You don't want anyone to operate?"

"No one else would do it."

"No one else can do it," Derek corrects with casual arrogance.

For a moment they just regard each other; Derek doesn't recite the risks again, and Mark doesn't protest his impressions.

Finally Derek says quietly, "Have you made plans for…"

Mark shakes his head. Two doctors and they haven't been able to bring themselves to talk about end of life care, to discuss how to deal with a possible vegetative state, to make hospice plans if the surgery falls through – Addison refused each time he brought it up.

I can't talk about this now.

We may not have that much time to … talk about it, Addison…

She'd looked at him in horror when he suggested time might be running out and he found himself apologizing, burying the subject and squeezing her hand instead.

But Derek is looking at him expectantly now, and he feels the guilt of not having been able to bring themselves to plan.

"It all happened so quickly," Mark offers, even though he knows that's something patients, not doctors, say. He doesn't say Addison doesn't want to talk about it, but something about the way Derek is looking at him suggests he knows that's what he's thinking.

"I don't want to talk about this now."

"You never want to talk about it, Addison."

Mark looks from one to the other awkwardly. "So, uh, why not just skip it altogether?" Mark asks hopefully.

"Because my husband likes to raise this topic when he thinks he can get an ally on his side," Addison says, pressing her lips together.

"Because my wife would rather have double-barreled credentials than a family," Derek retorts.

For a moment Addison and Derek both look surprised at Derek's words and Mark is distinctly uncomfortable to bear witness.

Then Addison turns around and leaves, letting the screen door bang behind her. Derek pokes angrily at the charcoals under the grill.

"That was kind of … intense," Mark observes.

"She's impossible lately." Derek pushes his hair away from his face. He's often cranky out here; he's always saying he hates the Hamptons. "You might have made the right choice staying single."

Mark used to think people just had kids, or didn't, without this much back and forth, but the subject has become one more that makes his two best friends bicker, sometimes good-naturedly and sometimes … not. His job is to run interference, so he offers what he can.

"It's more complicated for her, Derek, you know what they said at that Women in Medicine event-"

"You went to a Women in Medicine event?" Derek interrupts, raising his eyebrows. "Anything you want to tell me?"

"Just that it's a great place to meet women."

Derek rolls his eyes. "You really feel the spirit of professional equality, don't you, Mark?"

"I'm just saying, the girl gets pregnant, she can't keep up her schedule, her career stalls for two, three years – maybe more – and the guy just … goes on with his life."

"So I'm a bad husband because I can't change the laws of nature?"

"Here, I thought you might need these." Addison is padding back across the flagstones toward them; her face is flushed, but as she hands Derek the barbecue tongs Mark gets the sense that they're agreeing not to talk about it anymore.

"Thank you." Mark sees him snag a loop of her cutoffs as she starts to walk away, pull her closer. "Take a look at these burgers, Addie, see what you think."

They examine the grill together and Mark stands up, stretches his legs.

He's a semi-respectable distance away when he hears Derek mutter "Look, I know this kid stuff is different for gir- for women."

"You do?"

"Yeah."

"Oh. Well, that's good then. I'm, um, I'm sorry too." Her voice is slightly shaky but she tilts her head to kiss Derek on the cheek, then rests her head against his shoulder. Over the top of her bright hair Derek catches Mark's eye and mouths the word thanks.

"You should … make plans," Derek says carefully, and Mark sees something like sympathy when their eyes meet. "Even if I can operate-"

"What's going on out here?"

Addison is framed in the doorway between them; her tone is neutral but she's wearing a quizzical expression.

"Nothing much," Derek says briefly, and for the first time in almost eight years the two men do something that used to come naturally and exchange a knowing glance over Addison's head.

Addison is no sooner back with Annabel than Mark sees two familiar faces rounding the corner of the hallway.

"Max has been very helpful," Dr. Robbins smiles warmly. "He's going to make a great intern in a few years." Sure enough, Max has a fistful of tongue depressors. They're one of the kids' favorite art supplies. Mark sees someone – Dr. Robbins? – has drawn funny faces on a few of the sticks. He swallows hard.

"Thank you," he says hoarsely to the doctor over Max's head. "You didn't need to-"

"It's my pleasure," she smiles. "I need to keep up my kid skills. And now I'm going to give him back to you so I can take another quick look at his big sister." Her voice remains cheerful, as if Max can still hear. "I'll come get you if I need you."

"The famous Max. Hi there." Derek smiles down at the little boy. "You look just like your dad on his first day of kindergarten."

"My dad's not in kindergarten," Max replies solemnly and Mark can't help grinning. He ruffles his son's hair. "They're pretty literal at four."

"Apparently. We're not there yet."

"How old is-"

"Two and a half."

"That's a fun age. Annabel was two and a half when this guy was born." Mark hears the words as if they're coming from someone else's mouth, but apparently he can do this, the kind of meaningless parent-chatter he's spouted and listened to everywhere from Chelsea Piers to the Ancient Playground. The dad thing. It's superficial but it's something, it's something other than Derek's cold eyes pretending he doesn't exist. So he'll take it.

"Yeah, he's a pretty great kid." Derek's eyes are soft, apparently thinking about his son, and Mark has a momentary pang for all their years of lost friendship. Wasn't this how it was supposed to be, blood brothers to the end, their kids growing up together? Not just finding out the other one had kids and …

"Max!" It's a pretty nurse calling his name, and Max gives Mark a quick glance for permission – getting a nod in return – before following the smiling brunette back to her desk.

"We don't want to be disruptive…" Mark starts to apologize

Derek waves a dismissive hand. "Thomas emptied a two-gallon swab container in an exam room last weekend. I didn't even know he could lift it."

"They're extra strong when they want to make a mess." Mark smiles at multiple memories that flood his mind. Better memories.

"And he goes through band-aids like water. Every teddy bear, every …" Derek trails off, looking across the hallway at Max again, who is beaming on the nurse's lap, chattering, and Mark can't identify the expression in his eyes. "He's your clone, really," Derek says finally, then frowns slightly. "Have you had him tested?"

"Hm?"

"Has he had an MRI? I mean, since…" no one wants to say since you found out your daughter has a brain tumor.

"No. I mean, it's not genetic, is it?"

"It's almost definitely not genetic, but - almost."

"He hasn't had one." Derek is looking at him like he wants more of an answer. "Addison didn't want to put him under," Mark admits.

He feels guilty almost immediately for blaming her – true though it may be - when

Derek gives him a look Mark recognizes as one he'd occasionally given Derek, years back: who's in charge here, anyway?

"I recommend it," Derek says simply. "They're fast, it's perfectly safe. It's better to know."

Is it?

Derek continues: "Arizona – Dr. Robbins – can handle it. Max seems very comfortable with her."

"You mean he has a crush."

"Yes, well." Derek snaps shut the chart he's been holding. "He may be barking up the wrong tree there." He gives Mark a brief, cool smile – surprising him. "Have Dr. Robbins find me after she finishes with Annabel," he says, and then he's gone.

Addison joins him at the window.

"You were talking to Derek."

"Yeah."

"How was that?"

"It was … okay. Listen, Addison, since we're here anyway, we could get Max tested…"

She tilts her head. "Derek's idea?"

"He suggested it, yeah. Are you still opposed?"

"I don't know." Her brow is furrowed slightly, and he can't tell what she's thinking. "What did Derek say, exactly?"

"Just that he thought we should check. To be absolutely sure. Oh, and that Max is my clone." He offers it to make her smile – he's heard it many times, especially over the last year or so, since Max has started to look more like a little boy than a baby, and it never fails to make Addison smile.

But this time she just presses her lips together, looking distracted. There's a flash in her eyes that confuses him.

"Addison? What is it?"

She smiles at him. "Nothing, I'm sorry."

He reaches to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. He realizes he never actually managed to procure coffee, starts to apologize, but she cuts him off. "I'll go," she says, catching his hand where it rests on her shoulder and squeezing it. "You sit with Annabel."

Addison's fingers slide out of his as Mark pushes open the door to his daughter's room.

TBC...Reviews are warmly welcomed and always appreciated.

Title lyric from Death Cab for Cutie's Marching Bands of Manhattan