Author's note: I promised this story would be friendly to all and it is - but everyone surrounding Annabel is also under a lot of stress right now. Parts of this chapter are verbatim from the outline I drew up six years ago; it's a little long for this story, but I think in many ways it's crucial to understanding where (and why) everyone ended up in this universe.

without a sound we lose sight of the ground

"Seriously?"

Somehow it made sense for her to talk to Meredith; they didn't discuss it, just moved in sync without planning the way they have so many times passing their children back and forth. Mark stays inside the room to hold Annabel's hand; Addison meets the expressive eyes of the woman who is both Derek's wife and Annabel's doctor.

"I'm so sorry. Richard just told us."

"I need to go find him." She turns to leave.

"Meredith-" Addison calls after her, and she turns around.

"We don't – as far as we're concerned, it's fine, it's just these – automatic compliance triggers. We didn't push this, we don't want him to be-"

"I know."

"She's twenty-three hours seizure free," Addison whispers.

Meredith steps back to her, touches her arm, small hand firm. "No review board would tell Derek Shepherd to stop operating."

Addison presses her lips together, trying desperately to soak up the other woman's confidence. "You're right. First thing tomorrow morning, eastern time, we should know."

"That can't have been a pleasant conversation," Mark observes as she slumps wearily into the chair across from Annabel's bed.

"No."

Mark's body is as restless as hers is exhausted, it seems, as he paces the room, keeping his voice low to avoid waking their children, both of whom are sleeping now - Max curled in the larger visitor's chair resting his head on Mark's folded-up jacket. "Hard to believe, you know? After all this work, all his training, he's got his own family now, a kid, that he would – what?" He asks off Addison's expression.

"Nothing, I just…"

He must recognize something guilty in her face because his eyes darken, he looks angry the way he does when he's being protective. "You can't possibly be blaming yourself. Addison."

She looks up at him wordlessly.

"This is not your fault," he says firmly.

That's what he said the last time, too. Except once again, the people she needs are spinning out of control around her and there she is at the center, causing destruction.

She sinks into the chair by Annabel's bed. Mark rests his hand on the top of her head for a moment, stroking her hair.

"He's going to be able to operate, Mark. We just need to keep her seizure free through the night and he's going to be able to do it."

He takes the seat next to her, waits for her to turn to look at him.

"These things can stretch out," he says carefully. "Get … difficult. Remember what happened to Callaghan, in New York? And that wasn't even intentional…"

She shakes her head. "This is different."

"I know it's different. You know. Compliance boards have their own ideas."

But it was her idea to call Derek, she who insisted they try, and Mark's faith in Derek is paramount. He can't lose faith – right now, incongruously enough, she's quite certain that her own family's future rests on Mark's faith in Derek.

To Mark she just repeats her words from earlier: "I'm sleeping here," and he leans over her, the warmth from his body comforting even briefly, to kiss the top of her head.

She lets Mark gently wake Max and take him out of the room to feed him, be there for him so Addison can focus her eyes on her sleeping daughter and will her to keep going.

They sit for a while as a family of four, each time precious, and the red numbers slowly tick the passage of time. Max falls asleep on her lap, but when she tries to stand so he can leave with Mark, her son wakes just enough to cling to her and she sits back down heavily. "Don't go," he begs, little fingers latched into the neck of her blouse, breaking her heart.

"I'm going to see you first thing in the morning, sweetheart." She rocks him helplessly.

He clutches tighter. "No."

Mark crouches next to them, rests his hand on his son's back. "Come on, buddy. Let's go tuck your dinosaurs in."

"Mommy too," he whimpers.

"Mommy's going to stay with Bel, and you're going to come with me," and that's normal for them, it's ordinary, trading children and schedules; his fingers start to loosen from her collar.

"There we go." Mark says soothingly, lifts the little boy from her lap, hoisting him into his arms.

She stands to kiss them both goodbye, can't help holding onto her husband's face for just a moment – it's scruffy, he hasn't shaved. Max is already half asleep again; she whispers into his soft hair: good night, sleep tight, see you in the morning light.

She's sitting across from Annabel, head in her hands, when Richard's shadow makes her look up.

"You paged?"

She brushes a hand across her eyes. "I just wanted to ask if Derek-"

"Leave him be, Addison."

"No, I just wanted to-"

"You shouldn't have contact," Richard says gently. "Not without lawyers or a hospital representative, not for now. Addison – just get some sleep. Tomorrow could be a long day."

She curls fully dressed on the cot someone provided next to Annabel's bed, watches her daughter's chest rise and fall, slightly, as she breathes. The last thing she wants to do or thinks she can do is sleep but Richard was right – it's going to be a long day tomorrow. As she has learned over the past seven years, she can make herself do things she couldn't normally do, for her children, and so now she forces herself to claim the rest her body desperately needs. She tries to send this surety out to Annabel, willing her small body to stay restful for the night.

By 6:01 she's on the phone with Mark, foot tapping restlessly on the hospital floor. "She held out, Mark. She's holding out. When is that call going to come?"

"Six is the earliest we'd hear, Addie. It could be as late as nine."

Mark brings her fresh clothes and she freshens herself as best as she can.

Annabel wakes briefly, sleepily, and Addison watches Meredith examine her, watches the way she instructs and responds to her interns. She'd seemed young when Addison met her in the elevator those many years ago but there's a gravity to her, a maturity, that she appreciates deeply right now. Especially the way she's holding it together when Derek's future is on the line.

Derek's … and Annabel's.

She drops a quick kiss on the top of Max's head – he's bent over a picture book, making quiet tractor noises as Mark guides him through sounding out a word.

She knows where she needs to go, despite Richard's instruction. A quick check of the wall and she finds his office.

"Now you actually have an office worthy of you." She smiles at the touches the decorator added that were actually her idea – she knew Derek would take the suggestions better if they came from a stranger, but she also knew how good the stark glass and mid-century seating would look.

"Worthy," he laughs. "Are you trying to inflate my ego?"

"Honey, is that even possible anymore?"

"I walked right into that, didn't I. But are you saying you're not impressed … Dr. Shepherd?"

"Like brain surgery is so impressive." But she's straightening the framed diplomas on his wall anyway, just a bit possessively, and smiles at him over her shoulder.

"Oh, yes it is," and he tugs her away from the wall, smiles back at her, soft eyes that get her every time.

Her gaze falls on the picture of the two of them on his new glass desk. She chose the silver frame herself, and the picture, and placed it just so; it's one she likes, a professional shot carefully styled to look casual, on the beach in Nantucket, it must be … five or six years ago now. She could count every line not on her face in that captured image, every pepper hair that's not salt on her husband's head. It's magic hour, a glow over everything.

"What?" He looks at the frame too. "Oh, don't get sentimental on me… didn't I tell you you're prettier now?"

"You're required to say that … rules of marriage."

"Well, I'm good at following the rules." He pulls her closer.

"You think you're good at everything," she mock-scolds, enjoying his attention.

"I know I'm good at some things," and the expression in his eyes makes something in her chest flicker. It's been a while … he presses his lips softly to hers, and she responds, the sleeves of her lab coat winding around his neck automatically.

"Oh gosh, sorry, Dr. Shepherd! And Dr. Shepherd!" The resident gives a nervous laugh from the doorway as Addison pulls her arms down, touches the back of her hand to her lips self-consciously. Derek doesn't look embarrassed; she's not sure he'd know how.

"It's fine, Rogers. What do you have for me?" He takes the chart from her.

The resident seems to be trying not to smile at both of them. More fodder for the chatter Addison pretends not to enjoy as much as she does, and she can imagine it now: "The Shepherds still can't keep their hands off each other. I went to the He-Shepherd's office and he was all over the She-Shepherd. They're so cute."

Okay, so she likes it - all the more so because it's true. You can't be lonely when you're the center of the universe, can you?

"Let's go take a look." Derek's talking to the resident. "Can you order a new CT?"

"Addie?" He kisses her cheek. "Don't redecorate without me. Rogers, let's go."

"I'll wait for you to leave tonight, Derek?" Addison calls after him as he walks away.

"Not tonight," he replies, not turning around, focused completely on the chart in front of him.

He's standing with his arms folded, his back to her, and he doesn't turn around when she knocks softly, takes a few tentative steps inside the unfamiliar office. Only the diplomas on the wall are the same. The furniture here is dark and simple. Photo frames abound on the desk, the shelves, and she scans them. In rough hewn wood, a younger Thomas grasping handfuls of Meredith's hair, her face caught in a laugh - a natural, open-mouthed laugh. Derek always liked candid shots. In one of those dime store plastic box frames, a shot of just Meredith, in scrubs, large eyes focused on the photographer like they're sharing a secret. Then a picture of the three of them in a simple white frame – they're in some woodsy area, none of them looking quite at the camera, Meredith in a messy ponytail grinning at Derek, who's holding both a thermos and a laughing Thomas in his arms.

"Derek," she says tentatively.

Nothing. She looks past the desk, to the couch against the far wall. It's mussed in a way that looks familiar.

"Did you…sleep here?" she asks before she can stop herself.

He answers without looking at her. "Meredith told me not to come home last night. Something about my not appreciating her and Thomas. That they're not enough for me." He pronounces the words bitterly, painfully.

"Oh, Derek, I'm sorry." Her heart thumps.

"Of course you are." His voice is cold and sarcastic now, more like the one she remembers from her last time in Seattle, from some of their worse fights in New York, not the calm, even caring, professional who's been working with them here, and she swallows hard, bracing herself. He still can't seem to bring himself to look at her.

"I am sorry. I didn't want any of this to happen. I didn't know you had … questions. If you had just asked me about Annabel…"

"Because you're so honest?"

It stings and she has to force herself not to let her voice quiver when she responds. "Look, NatMed is reviewing the emergency application now, and we're supposed to hear from-"

"You think I don't know that?" He turns on her, blue eyes like ice. "You think I don't know I may lose my job? My license? Not to mention my-" he stops and the fear she can see behind the anger in his eyes goes straight to her gut.

"I … I tried to talk to Richard, Derek, I did, but…"

"Don't talk to Richard. And don't talk to Meredith. You've done enough. Just stay out of this, Addison." The way he spits out her name reminds her of too many fights.

"I want to help you," she says tremulously.

"Help me? Help me?" he laughs, a nasty sort of laugh that she unfortunately remembers well.

"All you know how to do is make things worse, Addison. All you know how to do is take." He's pacing, not looking at her, his tone increasing in volume as he speaks. "My life was good before you got here. Better than good. Better than it ever was before. You have ruined my life every time I have made the mistake of making you part of it. No, don't." He waves a hand dismissively when she tries to respond. "The two of you, you're perfect together, you really are. You both ruin everything you touch."

"Derek, please…" she knows she should leave, remembers from experience he won't be done winding down yet, but she's frozen, the only warmth the flooding in her cheeks as his insults burn her skin.

He looks right at her, and she doesn't recognize anything but hatred in his ice blue eyes. "Two adulterous sociopaths," he spits. "Those kids never stood a chance."

Everything is blurry as she finally pushes out of the room, down the hall, anywhere.

Outdoors, mercifully, she gulps misty air into her tight chest. He's hurting, she knows this – his career is on the line, and his family - he didn't mean it. But her children, her babies … she was okay until then. She leans forward, hands on her thighs like she's just run around the reservoir, taking in much needed oxygen as his harsh words pound her skull.

"Are you okay?"

She looks up at the now rather familiar scratchy voice. Meredith.

"He … can have a way with words," Addison says finally. No need to say who he is.

"Cutting," Meredith offers, not inaccurately. Addison looks into the distance for a moment, at this unfamiliar landscape. It's an amusing pun in some ways.

His words were less amusing. She reminds herself she isn't exactly kind either, when she's angry. Reminds herself she and Derek sometimes brought out the worst in each other, especially toward the end.

But Meredith's eyes are warm. Addison's not sure she deserves her mercy, but she takes it anyway. Isn't that what Derek said? That she's a taker? So when Meredith suggests a cup of coffee, she says yes.

"I'm sorry about what's happened," Meredith says gently as they sit across from each other in mild damp air, hands around steaming paper cups.

"Don't apologize, please. I should be apologizing." Addison takes a swallow of coffee to keep her lips from trembling.

"It's not your fault."

Addison looks down, can see in her peripheral vision that Meredith is doing the same thing. Neither of them says whose fault it is, they're just quiet, together, for a moment, until Addison takes a deep breath for courage and starts talking.

"I'm partly to blame," she says and when Meredith starts to respond she lifts a hand, and she lets her continue. "I wanted him to be a god," she admits. "I asked him to be, and maybe that wasn't fair. He's not a god. He's a human, and he's flawed, but he's … a good person, I have to believe that, I do believe that. I was married to him for eleven years, Meredith, and I'm…partly to blame."

"What happened to the two of you?" Meredith asks, swirling the stirrer through her coffee cup. "I mean, I know about Mark, but – before that. Was he a bad husband?"

She's surprised by the perceptive question. How long did it take Addison to start seeing the end of their marriage as a process that started long before the night Derek caught her with Mark?

"No, he wasn't a bad husband. We just stopped being good together… stopped making time for each other. Two careers, two homes, we were always juggling so many things and we hardly saw each other after a certain point. We once showed up at the same conference with no idea the other was going. In Chicago," she adds, almost smiling at the memory; they'd tried to laugh it off then, but … "We were always busy," she explains, "but the first few years … the first few years were different. We made time then. And it's different for me now, with Mark. Even with the kids, our schedules..." She looks up at Meredith. "And it's different for the two of you, isn't it. You and Derek. I can tell."

"We make time," Meredith says slowly. "We do. We also don't usually commit medical battery, though, so…apparently things can change."

Addison makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. She imagines in another universe they might have been friends, and she thinks that she can see why this combination of dark humor and gentleness might have been exactly what Derek needed to heal. She smiles carefully at the other woman, displaying her willingness to answer more questions, and Meredith responds.

"Do you think it would have been different, if you'd had kids?"

Addison wonders what Derek has told her on the topic, if anything. "I don't know. We would probably still have grown apart, but with more collateral damage." She sees the question in Meredith's eyes. "We talked about it. I wasn't ready. You know, we weren't always that careful, when we were …" she pauses, gauging her audience … "newlyweds with insane resident schedules, I was on the pill but I was forgetting or pulling all-nighters half the time, and we never had a scare, not once. I guess part of me thought if it was meant to happen it would. Oh, and another part of me was afraid to become my mother." After all these years without close female friends, it feels surprisingly natural to admit it in this moment.

"Now that I can relate to," Meredith smiles ruefully.

Addison looks down at her hands. "I was the one who wasn't ready. He always wanted kids, Meredith."

"Yeah - biological kids."

She shakes her head. "I don't think that's true. I just think – that our coming here was hard for him."

Meredith nods. "The timing is … difficult."

Addison looks up.

"I told you the other night we…tried. With the fertility. We did a round of IVF, but I didn't want to do another. It's hard, physically. Physically and mentally too, I didn't want to be pumped full of hormones, distracted from work, distracted from Thomas and Derek. I just wanted to be with the family we already have. Naomi called last week to see if we – but I said no. Derek wanted to try again."

She's silent for a moment and Addison waits.

"I do know he loves Thomas," and Meredith can't seem to help smiling, her eyes softening, thinking of memories Addison can't see. "But I also saw the way he looked at Annabel."

"She's not his," Addison says quickly.

"I know that. He knows that too, you know – he knew it all along on some level, but – " Meredith's voice trails off and she, too, turns her head to look out at the city in the distance. "The timing is just difficult," she repeats finally. She looks at Addison. "You're really not angry, about what he did?"

She thinks of all the things Derek's put in jeopardy: his career, his family, her family.

And shakes her head.

"I'm not. I'm - not trying to excuse him, just – I don't think he's had a chance really to process all of this." It's occurring to her, crystallizing, as she talks. "I used to think in some ways he got the better deal out of … the three of us. Fresh start, new relationship, he got to keep his family, keep his friends. But he never really had the chance to deal with any of it. He drove here in the middle of the night without telling anyone and started a new life and except for that one week I was here with the divorce papers, well, he never had to face … me, or Mark, or any of it."

Meredith is listening, head slightly tilted.

"It's not that I think he's not … over it, what happened in New York. Even with the...difficult timing," she borrows Meredith's phrase, "he's so clearly happier here. But I just think in some ways he's dealing with what happened for the first time. And I can tell you, Meredith, because I had to deal with it for the first time, oh, almost eight years ago now, it's not easy. It's really not. It took a long time, to be honest. It took therapy and a lot of tears and – also some stupid decisions."

They're quiet for a moment; Meredith is next to speak: "He'll still operate, when they clear him."

"I know." His surgical commitments were never the ones that wavered, and she's deeply, painfully grateful.

"I never had any doubts, about Annabel," Meredith says quietly.

"No?" Addison looks up at her. Of all the people to trust her, her ex-husband's new wife seems low on the list. Derek might have forgotten his math, but Meredith had no basis not to believe him, no reason to assume Annabel was anything other than a cruel lie plotted by the adulterers who screwed her husband over so many years ago.

"No. I don't know you," she admits. "But I do know Derek and I don't think anyone who he was married to for as long as he was married to you would be the kind of person to hide something like that."

She considers this for a moment, Derek as her credential of humanity. It's more credit than Derek seemed willing to give her in his office. "Thank you," she says huskily. Her eyes fill with tears, surprising herself, but the idea that he harbored these doubts, that she would have kept his child from him, kept him from her…

"You loved him."

"I did." Addison swallows hard. "For a long time. And so did Mark, for an even longer time." She looks down. "And I regret, truly, how much we hurt him. Then, and, um, and now. I knew it would be hard, calling him, asking him to help us," her heart thumps, as she pictures Annabel sleeping inside the sterile walls of the hospital, "I knew it would be hard for him but I had to do it because-"

"-because you're a mother," Meredith finishes for her when she stops to draw a ragged breath.

She nods, remembering Meredith's words that first day. I think you did the right thing bringing her here. I'm a mother too, and I would have done the same thing.

"Because I'm a mother," she echoes now. "And Derek agreed to try. He agreed without question, even though he hadn't seen us since the affair, even though he obviously would have preferred never to see us again, he still agreed."

"He's an incredible surgeon," Meredith offers, her eyes lowered, fingers playing with the disused plastic stirrer.

"Yes, he is, but I don't think that's why he agreed to do it."

Meredith glances up. "You don't?

"No." Addison shakes her head. "I think – I know, actually, that he agreed because he's a father. Because you made him a father, Meredith."

A page from Richard interrupts the moment, and she's racing toward his office, shoes slapping the stairs.

Mark is already there, and she meets his worried gaze.

"Sit down, Addie." Richard's voice is kind but it makes her stomach turn cold anyway.

She grasps the back of one of the guest chairs. "Just tell us."

"NatMed rejected the emergency review."

"No," she whispers. "No, they couldn't, not if they knew-"

"There are concerns, Addison, operating on the same patient who-"

"But we want him to, we're the holders of her consent, this can't be right. We'll give our permission now. Ex post. Let me talk to them."

"You know that's not how it works."

"Richard." She hears her voice shaking. "Can't you just … can't we do this quietly, book an OR for-"

"If I try to cover it up," Addison winces at his phrasing, "because that's what you're asking me to do, this hospital risks losing its credentials altogether. You want to shut it down, all the patients here, all the doctors, all our research? Even if I wanted to," he says more gently, "it's out my hands now, Addie, like I told you. Once the report is triggered the medical board is alerted. They'll institute their own compliance checks now. And then the process just … moves itself…"

"What does that mean?"

"A doctor's privileges at this hospital are dependent on valid licensing." It's a rote recitation of which she's well aware, but he's looking away from her, out the window of her office.

She turns impatiently to see what's distracting him, following his gaze to two uniformed security officers on the hospital floor below.

And standing between them with a stack of files -

"Derek!"

She calls his name, instinctively pressing a hand against the glass wall of Richard's office, but he can't possibly hear her. He's talking quietly to a resident and a nurse now, gesturing at files, and she can tell he's giving them instructions for his patients.

She rushes to the catwalk, ignoring Richard and Mark, calls his name again, but he doesn't turn around, just nods briefly to the security guard, who nods back.

And then he's walking away, alone, without acknowledging her even as she calls out to him a third time, desperately. Walking out of her life down the same hospital hallway he disappeared almost eight years before.

Except this time he's taking with him the only hope she had to save her daughter's life.

TBC.

(Reviews are super motivating and always appreciated.)

Title lyric from Snow Patrol's Over My Head.