A/N: Happy Friday, everyone! Time for my slacking self to pick up that posting pace. Less obsessing and more posting: that's the way to keep a story going without a five-year hiatus, am I right? Thank you so much to everyone who's been reviewing - it's incredibly motivating and I am so happy you're enjoying the story. And it helps reaffirm my commitment to finish, so keep 'em coming and thank you again!

Oh, and don't hate me after this chapter. All will be well.

only one thing to do and that's to be the wave that I am and then sink back into the ocean

She's still fiddling with her keycard when Mark pulls open the door to their hotel suite, greets her with a quick kiss and then mutters brace yourself. Two steps into the living area and she's confronted with her ex-husband, ex-sister-in-law, and ex-husband's new wife in detailed collaboration around the table. Every light is on in the suite, which smells like coffee and less-than-fresh pizza; combined with the studious group of neurosurgeons, she's reminded inescapably of late-night med school study sessions with two of the room's occupants. She toes out of her shoes, letting memories and this new normal wash over her in tandem.

The threesome is deep in concentration, not looking up until Addison is right in front of them, proffering a folder of scans and a binder-clipped lab report.

"New numbers!" Derek takes them from her hand. "Thank you."

"How's Annabel?" Meredith asks.

"Sedated. Sleeping." Addison glances from one surgeon to another. "How's it going here?"

"Great," Amy says confidently. Addison sees Derek and Meredith exchange a look that she's not sure how to identify.

"Hungry?" Mark gestures toward the pizza box on the counter.

She wrinkles her nose. "No, thank you. Did Max eat?" It's almost eight o'clock. Special circumstances or not, he must be exhausted.

Mark gestures toward the bedroom where Max has been sleeping and she follows him inside. Max and Thomas are seated together on the carpeted floor, a plate of apple slices and what looks like a very complex railway system between them. The earworm theme song of Conductor Bob is playing on Mark's iPad, propped up in front of them. Max is in the process of handing a little red caboose to Thomas – sharing! – when he looks up and sees her in the doorway.

"Mommy!" He jumps to his feet. He's wearing his turtle-printed pajamas; Thomas, who smiles shyly at her, is wearing sleep clothes as well.

Addison has just a moment to process the sheer cuteness of it in the face of all this stress before she crouches down to catch the little boy running into her arms. "Hi, sweetheart, it looks like you've been having fun."

Max squeezes her around the neck, coming close to knocking both of them over, and Addison settles for sitting down cross-legged and pulling Max into her lap.

"I'm playing with Thomas," Max says happily, cuddling close. "He's my friend."

"I'm so glad. But It's getting late." Addison kisses the top of his head. "Aren't you boys tired?"

"No," Max says firmly. Thomas looks up from the train set at this. "No," he affirms.

Addison can't help smiling, so reminiscent is it of her two at home. She marvels at seeing Max as the big kid instead of the baby brother.

There's something poking into her leg and she shifts Max to dislodge what she assumes is a spare train track piece. It's actually a small wooden traffic light that looks like part of a set of –

"It's not mine," Max whispers. "I forgot."

Ah, she remembers now. From the hospital's playroom. "You want me to return it for you?"

Max nods and then wriggles out of her lap to pad back to his spot with Thomas, who solemnly hands him a blue locomotive.

Mark offers her a hand up and she takes it, letting him half-pull her to her feet. She leans against him, craving physical contact, and he moves both of them slightly further into Max's room before holding her close.

"Ow." Mark pulls back. "If that was your hipbone, you'd better get in there and eat some pizza."

She unfolds her hand to show him the traffic light.

"If he's a kleptomaniac, he's not a very good one," She leans against her husband again and sighs into his shirt. Without shoes on, she can fit her whole head against him and she takes advantage of that now, letting him essentially hold her up. Just for a minute, a minute for which she's deeply grateful, and then she pulls back.

"I should shower, change…" her voice trails off. "What are we going to do with these two?" She gestures toward Max and Thomas, smiling.

"Slumber party?" Mark sounds like he's only half-joking. "I could barely get the brain trust out there to refuel at all. They're not showing much sign of stopping."

She realizes that she was so shocked to see Amy that morning that neither Derek sitting in her hotel room poring over Annabel's latest CT scan nor Derek's son having a pajama party with Max surprises her much. How quickly normal can change.

There's so much she could say to Mark's familiar, expectant face. But all she can manage is Amy, and she knows he understands; he touches her cheek. "I know," he says.

A hot shower, fresh clothes, and an update from the nurse keeping watch over Annabel – no change – almost help.

"Eat something..." Mark calls as she heads back out the door to the hospital. No one at the neuro table looks up, but she hears another anterior vs. posterior argument beginning, with Amy – unsurprisingly – the loudest.

She detaches a banana from the bunch on the counter on her way out the door.

Amy. Amy. Operating on Annabel.

Maybe Mark was right all along, and she placed too much faith in Derek. But can Amy really be right, that two neurosurgeons with combined less experience than Derek has can pull off a procedure no other surgeon will touch?

Then again, Amy is offering to do something.

She's still thinking about this as she settles by Annabel's bedside, takes her daughter's small hand in hers.

Do something.

Two small words that mean so much. She was haunted for a while by the thought that she could have done something for Archer, if she'd known. That someone could have, anyway.

Addie, you know they had no warning, even Derek wouldn't have looked for an aneurysm in a healthy 45-year-old guy. Archer was a neurologist, he took great care of himself, sometimes these things just happen.

Maybe these things do just happen.

But she can't let them happen to Annabel.

Her daughter is a small, smiling octopus, all wriggling arms and legs slick with sunscreen, midday brightness reflecting auburn highlights in her dark curls. When her requests for "down, down" from the wooden high chair propped by their table at a sunny sidewalk bistro go unheeded, she lunges for the butter dish and digs in happily.

Archer looks at Annabel's lightweight romper with a raised eyebrow. "What happened to the dress I sent from Paris?"

"It was beautiful, Archie. She'll wear it in about five years when she can fit into it."

"Need that! Mine?" Annabel reaches for Archer's blackberry. "Mine, please?"

"No, baby, don't touch." Addison reaches for her daughter.

"Leave it, she has good taste – I just upgraded to the new one last week."

Archer locks the screen and then hands it to his niece. "Here, kiddo, go nuts. Just don't call the woman I saw last night. And if you do, don't call the one I saw the night before."

"She understands English, you know."

"Good, the sooner she learns not to trust men, the better."

Addison leans back against the wrought-iron chair. Begonias in bright red and pink are spilling over the boxes just behind her protecting them from passersby. She rests a hand on her belly, enjoying the warm June air – just enough breeze to keep her from boiling.

"It's good to see you, Archie."

"You too, sis." He smiles at her. "Look, Addie, I don't care what Bizzy thinks, you know I think it's very … liberal of you to do the whole divorce-find-myself-swingers thing."

"I am not a swinger!"

"You know what I mean."

"Wait." She narrows her eyes. "What did Bizzy say?"

Archer raises both eyebrows this time and says nothing.

Addison glances over at Annabel, whose sweet face is scrunched with concentration as she apparently attempts to break her uncle's new blackberry. "Does Bizzy, um, does she know I'm pregnant?"

"Again?" Archer asks. "Not that I've heard. Though it would be hard to miss it if you were ever in the same city." He nods meaningfully at her swollen belly.

"Thank you, for that." She's grown much faster with this pregnancy than the last, and she's sensitive about it, but Archie somehow manages to make it sound affectionate.

"Come on, Addie, you know Bizzy thinks having babies out of wedlock is gauche. This isn't a surprise."

"Well, she also thinks mothering, period, is gauche, which is probably the root of both our problems."

"I'll drink to that." Archer raises his gin and tonic in her general direction.

Addison sips her sparkling water and smooths a stray curl from Annabel's forehead. "I was married before she was born," she reminds Archer quietly.

Archer eyes her over the top of his cocktail glass. "Kind of pushing the spirit of the law there, Addie. Pretty sure doing your husband's best friend and then having the new guy's kid still counts as wedlock even if you have a shotgun wedding first."

"Archer!"

But Annabel doesn't seem to notice anything amiss. She's holding Archer's blackberry in one sticky little hand, the other tearing through one of the books Addison brought with her to amuse her during lunch, smearing some butter on a brightly colored page that says MY DOG IS SOFT.

"Addison," he says firmly, "I don't care what you do. You're my baby sister." He smiles at her. "This one's a boy, right?"

Addison nods. "He's due in August. Are you going to be around then, or…"

"New York City in August?" He shudders. "Please. But I'll be back to visit, don't worry. Maybe in the fall. You know I love kids." He pronounces the last sentence with obvious sarcasm but she catches him giving Annabel a little wink.

"Mama," Annabel interrupts, "here, for you," and she hands the buttery book over and grips the blackberry with all ten of her little fingers.

She strokes her daughter's cheek and Annabel turns her head, buffing her cheek into her mother's hand. Her heart has swelled so full for her daughter these last two years, it's hard to imagine another baby is only a couple of months away.

"You look happy," Archer observes.

"I am."

"Good." Archer grins at her. "Because I'll kill him if you're not."

She laughs. "You're a good big brother." They smile at each other and her throat starts to feel a bit thick when Annabel suddenly squeals with delight and drops Archer's new blackberry directly into his salmon tartare.

The last thing he said to her that day, as he hailed a cab on Park Avenue and Annabel waved a chubby hand in farewell from her arms: Hey, Addie, don't forget to call me when Archer Junior is born. You know I'll take any excuse to smoke a good cigar.

He was dead by mid-August, discovered by his squeeze of the moment on the floor of his rented villa in the south of France. Bizzy's secretary called to tell her. They flew his body back to Connecticut to bury him in the Bradford Forbes section of the revolutionary war cemetery where their parents' plots await them. In that haze of pain and shock, Addison still remembers feeling a spark of comfort – just a tiny one – that Archer's body was flown to Bradley instead of JFK. He never had to be in New York City in August.

Max has Archer's name and, when he's older, he'll have his signet ring, but it's Annabel's connection to Archer that always brought her some comfort. At least he spent some time with her. Not much, to be sure, but for two years Annabel had an uncle. And he stood by them, by the little family of three she loved so much, in the face of stares and whispers.

Not genetic. That's what they said. Archer had left specific instructions not to autopsy his body, so in some ways an aneurysm was just a lucky guess. A neurological event. Medical events have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and she missed all three stages. She won't let it happen again.

"Addison?" It's Callie, the orthopedic surgeon who's been so kind to her, and she's holding a paper cup of coffee from Annabel's doorway. Addison stands shakily.

"Here, I thought you might need this." She looks Addison up and down. "Have you eaten?"

"I had a banana." She did have it at one point, but she's pretty sure she left it in the cab on the way back to the hospital.

She takes a grateful sip of the coffee, leaning on the wall outside Annabel's room. "Thank you, for this."

Callie smiles at her. "I heard Shepherd's long-lost sister showed up."

"News travels fast here."

"Doesn't it in your hospital?"

Too fast, actually.

I can't deal with this now. I honestly don't think I can take one more thing.

They agreed not to talk about it until Annabel was better. But then he alluded to it in Annabel's room yesterday, over her protest.

I understand you don't want to, but I really think we need to.

"What is it?" Callie's dark eyes look concerned. There's something about her that makes Addison want to open up to her, that makes her miss having women around her where she can be … herself. And she's exhausted, and afraid, and the words spill out.

"I think my husband may be having an affair."

She whispers it and then has barely a moment to feel humiliated at her own words and to process the look of shock in Callie's widening eyes before she hears Annabel's soft voice from inside the hospital room.

"Mommy?"

"Bel." She thrusts the coffee back into Callie's hand and rushes into Annabel's room, bending over her bed to cup one soft cheek. "Hey, sweetheart, I'm right here."

"Where are we?" she asks sleepily, turning her face to resting her cheek in her mother's palm.

"In the hospital." Addison strokes her daughter's hair off her forehead.

"Am I better yet?"

She swallows over the lump in her throat. "Not yet, but everyone is working hard to get you better."

A nurse arrives at the change in her vitals, along with Dr. Foster and another neuro resident she doesn't recognize. Callie is gone from the doorway and Addison doesn't spare her any more thought. Annabel cooperates with her exam but her voice catches when the doctors leave. "I want to go home," she whispers.

"Oh, baby, I wish I could take you home." She holds the hand without the IV, strokes her hair, but it's impossible to get close enough, and she knows she can't pick her up and hold her as she'd like to. "But this is where we need to be right now to get you better."

Annabel stretches her arm out. It's the same gesture she'd make during thunderstorms – a true city baby, she thinks nothing of sirens or traffic sounds, but summer thunderstorms at the Connecticut house leave her seeking comfort.

"I can't lie down with you, sweetheart." Addison leans as close to her as she can, trying to think of some way to soothe her without disturbing the vital monitoring equipment. "Wait." Gently she detaches her daughter's fingers.

Moving the curtains back from Annabel's bed and pushes the wheeled cot over to the side of her daughter's bed, as close as it can get.

Addison stretches onto her side on the cot so they're roughly eye to eye. "See, Bel, we're lying together."

Annabel gives her a small smile, her little face partially blocked by the guardrail, and reaches out, seemingly trying to find her mother's hand, but the monitors beep when she bends her elbow.

Addison urges her small hand back down and, deciding not to overthink it, weaves her own arm through the heavy plastic guardrail and takes Annabel's little hand in hers. Stroking her impossibly soft skin with her thumb, she murmurs the soft sibilant sounds that used to rock baby Annabel to sleep and watches through half-mast lids as her daughter drifts back to sleep.

Addison watches her, waiting for her breathing to deepen. It feels wrong to see Annabel so still, so much of the time. She's always been in motion from the beginning, kicking her reassuringly in the womb, testing her little fingers and feet as a baby, walking early, a wriggling, active toddler. She wasn't quite two yet when, from her perch on Mark's shoulders, she caught sight of ice skaters in Central Park and got so excited Addison thought she might leap down. They fastened her into double-blades as soon as they could and towed her between them until she got her own footing. Even reading – the chapter books she's started to favor now, proudly, she'll twirl a foot, drum her fingers. To see her so still, so quiet, feels terribly wrong. Last weekend she was on skates. Her thumb draws circles on the back of Annabel's hand.

"Mommy!" Annabel skates over to her with fast, sure strokes, dark ponytail flying out behind her.

Addison leans into the entryway to the rink as her daughter speeds over, just a quick "Skates, Bel," reminder, and Annabel says "I know!" as she glides right into her mother's arms, bending her knees to lift her skates out behind her. She has the routine down.

"You were doing great out there!" Addison lifts her daughter to eye level and kisses her cold cheek.

"I didn't know you were coming to get me." Annabel smiles widely, resting her gloved hands on either side of Addison's face.

"Surprise," Addison grins back, then sets Annabel back on the ice, adjusting her daughter's fluffy white earmuffs.

"Can we stay for free skate? Pleeeeeaaaase," and she drags out the word as long as possible.

"I don't know, sweetheart, it's already almost six-thirty."

"Pretty please." Annabel tugs on her mother's hands with her little gloved ones.

"My skates are at home," Addison reminds her. She's wearing heels that are poking into the foamy outer-rink floor.

"You can rent skates," Annabel says. "Just this once…"

Addison can't resist. "Just this once. Go finish your lesson, love. I'll be right back."

There are many things she's done since becoming a mother that would have surprised her younger self, and now she adds to the list sliding her feet, protected only by her sheer stockings, into skates dozens of anonymous people have worn before her.

But as she steps onto the rink and sees Annabel's beaming face, she decides it's worth it. They glide together hand in hand as "Silver Bells" plays over the speakers. Only ten days until Christmas – as both kids reminded them this morning, none too quietly, jumping onto their parents' bed. They're a tight family of four and have been for the last four years, but there's something special about being one-on-one like this, able to focus just on Annabel, to hear her questions and watch her reactions and see the way she glows on the ice. Addison is chilly in her work clothes and the rental skates aren't a perfect fit, but as she glides in wide, looping circles hand-in-hand with her daughter, she's pretty sure it's as good as it gets.

Addison's in a deep, exhausted sleep and wakes just slightly at first, feeling a small hand moving in hers. One of the kids must have crawled into bed with them last night. From the size of the hand it's Annabel, who's a far less frequent visitor than her brother, but it's not unheard of. She's dimly aware that Mark's not there, the warm bulk of his presence missing; maybe he got called in to the hospital. "Shh, Bel," Addison murmurs automatically as the little hand moves within hers again, without opening her eyes. "It's okay, go back to sleep, love."

And then a blaring alarm jerks her awake as she suddenly realizes where she is and what's happening.

They're not curled up in her king-sized bed at home in their comfortable bedroom with its whole wall of pictures of Annabel and Max and the ivory chaise where she used to fall asleep sometimes nursing one or the other of her children.

No, she's on a cot in a hospital room with machines beeping loudly and the little hand within hers jerks again as her daughter seizes.

"Annabel!" And she tries to get her arm free so she can help her – can't quite figure out the issue, why she can't move, finally wrenching it out of the guardrail of her daughter's bed, tearing her sweater in the process, and jumping to her feet.

Other feet are slapping their way into the room, nurses, a doctor she doesn't recognize, and then the seizure ends as quickly as it began.

Annabel is sedated again, breaths regular and even, and Addison stops watching the restarted red seizure clock numbers. The numbers lose meaning and she has no idea how much time has passed as she sits motionless in the chair by Annabel's bed, head in her hands, when she hears someone approach.

"Dr. Montgomery?"

She looks up with bleary eyes. She doesn't recognize the doctor in front of her; younger than she is, stocky and muscular. He looks concerned.

"Dr. Karev." He nods in greeting when she doesn't extend a hand. "I was here for another case and Dr. Grey asked me to look in on Annabel after her seizure."

"Oh." Her head feels thick.

"I'm a pediatric surgeon." His words seem to come from very far away. "I'm a cardiac specialist, but I have some seizure experience, and I was here, so…" He gestures toward Annabel. "May I?"

"Of course."

She should text Mark, update him, but her hands feel chilled and heavy, so she just watches yet another doctor examine her daughter.

"Are you hurt? Dr. Montgomery?"

"Hm?" She looks over at him, confused.

He's gesturing to her arm and she follows his gaze down to a tear in the sleeve of her sweater.

And a red stain.

"You're bleeding."

She tries to process his look of concern. "It's fine."

"Can I take a look?"

He's already putting on gloves, and crouches down in front of her, carefully moving the pieces of her sweater aside. "You need to get this cleaned out."

He has a gentle grip on the uninjured part of her forearm. "How'd this happen?"

She tries to remember.

"Come with me, let's just clean-"

"No, I need to stay here."

"Okay." He smiles at her. "I'll get some supplies, and you can stay here. It doesn't look too deep. I'll be right back."

He returns with a kit as well as a bottle of water and a granola bar, both of which he opens for her. He doesn't ask any more questions, which she appreciates, just carefully rolls back the rest of her sweater sleeve and snaps on a fresh pair of gloves. She eats the granola bar with her free hand, dimly aware she needs it.

He works carefully, gently, while she looks past the top of his head to watch her daughter sleeping.

"There you go."

"Thanks." She glances down at her neatly bandaged arm, then takes a slow sip of the water he brought her.

He looks like he's hesitating before saying something. "I'm sorry, about all of this," he says quietly. There's something in his gruff-but-kind voice and sturdy presence that reminds her of a younger Mark and she suddenly, desperately, misses him.

"Thanks," she says again, for lack of anything better to say, her voice cracking slightly. She can tell he means – everything. Annabel, Derek, the possibly lost opportunity to operate.

"I understand why you're here," he says quietly. "I used to think it was hype, you know, the hair," and she smiles slightly at this. "I mean, I knew he was good, but I didn't really get it until about a year ago; we were both part of a multi-department team separating conjoined twins in Houston. They were connected at the forehead and their hearts were enlarged, and he was … unbelievable. I understand why you're here. I'm sorry he can't be here too."

"Thanks." It's the third time she's said it, but she means it.

"This whole NatMed thing is kind of a racket," he gives her a half-smile. "As long as he's blackmarked here he's blackmarked everywhere on UniPriv, and-"

He stops talking suddenly.

"What?" She looks anxiously toward Annabel's monitors but he's looking down at his clenched fists, and then his head pops back up again and a grin spreads across his face.

"I have an idea."

"An idea…?" she looks at him doubtfully.

"To help you. Just – stay here, I have to check something. I'll be back as soon as I can."

She watches the back of his white coat leave Annabel's room and wonders briefly if she dreamed the whole thing. But the reset red seizure clock numbers remind her that this is all too real.

Reviews make me happier than open skulls make Amy.

Title lyric from Fiona Apple's Container, which gives me the shivers.