A/N: (hopefully posting works this time) Lots going on in this chapter. Just to confirm, btw, based on the last chapter's reviews: Mark and Amy did not hook up. I have written lots of Markelia, but it's absolutely not going to happen here. Remember, I promised no romantic shakeups, period. Addison did express some concerns in a previous chapter, and she explains them more fully in this chapter, but that doesn't mean she's right - just that it's what she thinks, which is what I wanted to explore. Okay - time to add some more ingredients to the Seattle stew...
this is the story of how we begin to remember / this is the powerful pulsing of love in the vein
She's only half asleep, still watching Annabel, but she sits up straighter when his shadow crosses her path.
"Richard. Isn't it late for you to be here? Or – early?" The days have blended together the past week more fluidly than she can remember since she was a resident.
His expression is hard to read. "You know how hospitals are."
She does, but with the exception of truly necessary, it hasn't been like that for her, or for Mark, for years. Not when there are children at home who need them.
"Addison…"
She raises her eyes to meet his, worried, and he rests his hand on her shoulder.
"I'm sorry." He doesn't have to say for what. "About all of this. If I…" and his voice trails off. If a lot of things.
"I know." She blinks back tears. "I'm sorry, too. I feel like we've … taken over this hospital."
He smiles down at her. "The hospital's a big place. We'll get by. Addison…" He waits for her to look up at him again. "It's not so bad to ask for help, you know."
"Do as you say, not as you do?" she murmurs. She hasn't forgotten him that much over the years.
"Touché, Addie." He pats her shoulder. "That's the point of advice, isn't it? So you can do better than I did."
"Marriage is hard. Have you tried to work it out?"
"There's nothing to work out, Richard. It's done." She smiles at him sadly. He's always been a champion of their marriage; didn't he shepherd them through their intern year and then beam at them from the church when they married two years later, squiring her for a dance at the reception?
"You don't like to hide from a fight."
"There's no fight. It's already over. It's just paperwork now, and-"
"Addie. People make mistakes, they're not insurmountable."
"It wasn't a mistake." She thinks about the stick that turned blue, the blue of Mark's eyes when he looked at her as they waited together for the car that would take her to JFK. When she promised him she'd be back.
"You've tried counseling?"
"No, we went with infidelity instead." She tries to joke like her old self, tries not to remember the less than subtle whisper of "adulterous bitch" as she passed down the hall.
"Marriage takes work, Addie. You know, I have some experience in the area."
Tears spring to her eyes as she thinks fondly of Adele, who was always so kind to her. She can't help feeling she's disappointing both of them.
Richard is looking at her meaningfully, as if – oh god, she really doesn't want to think about Richard or Adele having an affair. "And I don't just mean in the area of marriage," Richard adds, with a raised eyebrow that confirms her suspicion. She nods uncomfortably at this new information.
"We made it work, Addison. You two can too. What you need to remember is-"
"Richard, I'm pregnant."
He stops. "You're – oh." His gaze automatically floats over her flat stomach. "Does Derek-"
"It's not his."
Richard's hand is at his chin, rubbing thoughtfully.
He opens his mouth to say something but she speaks over him: "I'm happy about it." She can feel tears brimming in her eyes, but for some reason, it feels important for Richard to know.
His familiar, kindly face blurs before her.
"I always thought you'd be a good mother," he says finally, gently. He rests a reassuring hand on her shoulder as she lets a few tears fall.
She's back in that half-sleep place, the little shape of Annabel under the covers rising and falling in rhythmically sedated breaths. She's remembering nursing a baby Annabel, the baby's soft breaths and contented suckling lulling both of them sleep. Her chin starts to feel heavy in her hand.
"Addison? Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."
"You didn't." She stretches a kink out of her neck, glances at the clock. "Not even six a.m. on Sunday morning? You really are dedicated."
Callie shrugs. "I had a trauma case finish up late, and you kind of dropped a bomb on me before, so I thought I'd see if you wanted to talk, or…" She glances at the bed. "How's she doing?"
"The same." Addison gestures to the red numbers on the clock, reset after Annabel's most recent seizure.
"Want to get a cup of coffee? Maybe some air? No offense, but you seriously look like you need it."
That's not hard to believe. She smiles tiredly. "I should stay with Annabel."
A nurse is coming in to check her monitors, a young-ish one she recognizes. Susan, who has apparently heard the tail end of the conversation.
"I'll watch Annabel, Dr. Montgomery. Get some air," she says.
She lets Callie lead her down the hall and, once they have paper cups of over-brewed coffee in hand, to a small outdoor terrace area Addison doesn't recognize. They sit across from each other in wrought-iron chairs around a single table. The fresh air does feel good, but the cold metal makes her shiver and she wraps her coat around her shoulders.
She checks her blackberry again; Susan's promised to update her if anything changes. Promised it with a sympathetic expression Addison unfortunately recognized all too well.
"We got interrupted, before…" Callie starts tentatively.
"I shouldn't have said anything."
"But you did."
"Yeah." She takes a sip of coffee. "I did."
Callie's dark eyes are sympathetic. Friendly, even.
She opens her mouth, tests herself. Will she actually be able talk about this? "…hospital gossip," that's what comes out: just two words. Everything starts with hospital gossip. From the day Derek abruptly left his job to the day she returned from maternity leave, every step she took in the hospital felt weighted down by stares, whispers … judgment. People keeping secrets; people thinking they knew her secrets. She'd recognize it anywhere.
"One of my residents saw something," she distances herself from the information; that's important: she's a surgeon, not a wife. "She, uh, she took a picture."
She recognized the oval-backed cane chairs, the little white marble tabletops, and the orchid on the glass case of macarons. Café Bleu, where they've stopped many times together on the way to or from work. It's not far from the hospital. It's a stealth picture, like the kind in gossip magazines she'd never buy, but …
"Here." She shows it to Callie. She hasn't shown it to anyone else.
Callie takes the phone from her hand. Addison doesn't need to look; she's memorized the picture. Mark, in his leather jacket over navy scrubs, every inch of him familiar from the shape of his jaw to the angle of the coffee cup – it will have been holding a cappuccino – to his right. He's sitting across from a woman that Addison doesn't recognize, a woman with long, blonde hair and a puffy winter jacket, her face slightly out of focus but not so much that Addison can't tell that she's both young and beautiful. And Mark's hand is resting over hers on the marble table-top. And he's looking at her with an unmistakable expression - one that scares her.
"Okay." Callie hands back the phone. "Go on."
Addison swallows. "This next part might make me look a little crazy," she admits.
"Then definitely go on."
"Well, I waited a few days."
She could have waited longer, but she wasn't used to keeping secrets from Mark, and he was worried. Are you sure nothing's wrong? He asked her that a few times, that look on his face the same one reflected in the picture her resident snapped, the same one for Max's bad dreams and Annabel's hurt feelings on the playground. Concern. Protectiveness. Love.
It was that realization that drove her back to Café Bleu.
"I, um, go to that place all the time, I know it pretty well, so I stopped in there. I talked to the waiter I know the best." And the one who checks me out the most. "He said that they'd been in there a few times, Mark and … that woman. He was the one who served them that day."
"Yes, Dr. Sloan is a very good customer, as you know. Not as good as you." He winks at her and she forces herself to smile back. "And the girl, I don't know her. She is not wearing a doctor's clothes."
"Did you, um," she tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. How has she become this person, asking this type of question? After all these years? "Did you happen to hear any of what they were saying?"
A cloud passes over his eyes and he shifts uncomfortably.
"Philippe, it's okay," she tries to sound encouraging. "I'd like to know, if you remember…"
He can't seem to meet her eyes. His gaze is on a table near the window – is that where they sat? Did they want to get caught? "Dr. Sloan, he says 'I am going to tell her, I'm just waiting for the right time,' and the girl seems worried, she says, 'you think she is going to freak out?'"
Addison's heart is pounding. Philippe has paused, looking at her.
"Go on," she says.
"Dr. Sloan, he says… 'Of all people, Addison will understand.'"
She grips the cane back of the chair, the café blurring before her eyes. The little white marble tabletops have become one white square.
"Madame, is everything all right?
"Yes, Philippe, I'm sorry." She smiles weakly at the anxious-looking waiter. "I'll just, um, I'll just take a cappuccino to go, please."
She swallows the warm drink as she pushes outside into the cold air. Enough skulking around; they're not those people anymore. She'll tell him tonight. Tomorrow Max has a birthday party and Annabel has her skating lesson; they can find time to be alone if they need to.
"Wow." Callie is regarding her over the top of her coffee cup. "So did you talk to him?"
"I did." She nods. "Well. Sort of. By the time we put the kids to bed and cleaned up and then Max had a bad dream and wanted to sleep with us. He did say it wasn't what I thought, that he needed to talk to me, to explain the whole story, but … " but that's what they all say. "The next day was Saturday and we were going to find time to talk, but then I was paged to the ER and Mark had Max and…." Her voice trails off.
Callie's eyes widen as she takes in the timing. "Wait, so that was…?"
Addison nods again, closing her eyes for a moment. "That was the day Annabel fell."
"Wow," Callie says again. "That timing is just …"
"I know. I told him I couldn't talk about it, not until Annabel is better. I couldn't handle one more thing." She says this resolutely.
"That's understandable."
She glances down at the picture again. "But then when it's quiet and my brain wants distraction … there we go. You know," she says daringly, "it's particularly poetic, because I caught him with a blonde nurse a couple of weeks after Derek caught us."
Callie's eyes, already wide to begin with, are enormous at this point.
Addison sighs. "I know… how it sounds, but it wasn't cheating – I mean, we weren't exclusive then, we weren't … I don't really know what we were." She looks at the other woman. "Are you sure you're not a shrink?" Callie gestures impatiently for her to continue. "Right, so … I was still married, and Mark was still what we politely called a playboy," manwhore doesn't seem appropriate right now. "I mean, we spent all this time together but we weren't together. I think some crazy part of me thought Derek was still coming back, then. I was pushing Mark away, I told him it wasn't a relationship."
"What changed?"
There's no point in prettying it up. "I, uh, I peed on a stick."
"Ah."
"I wasn't going to tell him at first, and then I did, and he… he was excited, he went out and bought this insane Yankees onesie," she smiles at the memory; that little blue and white onesie is still in the back of her top bureau drawer and not likely to go anywhere, "and then I was excited too, but I was also scared and I didn't think I should … go through with the pregnancy. Well. You know the rest."
"I know the rest."
She remembers his words, when she told him she was pregnant: So let's do it. Let's do it for real.
"So we … did it for real. I took off my rings, he took off his … little black book, I moved into his apartment and that was that. Richard called a month later, told me Derek was in Seattle, asked me to come out there for a TTTS case. And now you know the whole story."
Callie studies her, seeming to be digesting the information. "Okay, but isn't it possible that this isn't what you think? It's not like the resident caught them in the throes. I mean, she looks young, maybe she's a … med student he's mentoring or a long-lost cousin or something-"
She glances at the other woman. Most people, admittedly, don't have Addison's experience in the area.
"She's my age. That's just … gross." She's annoyed and disgusted, so it's not fair that her voice is quivering.
When she stares at the cushioned green floor of the courts, she can still see the back of Heather's feathery blonde head, which she'd recognize anywhere after years of sitting behind her in class, lining up with her in dancing school, swimming with her at the club – even with almost two years of college, sans Heather and the rest of them, under her belt. When she looks up it's the Captain in tennis whites, holding his racket and looking perfectly pleased with himself.
"Age is just a number, kitten! Lighten up. Everyone had fun, no harm done. Now. How about a game? Come on, I haven't seen you play in years. Or did you come all the way out to the club to hassle your old man?"
She shudders. "No, thank you. I'm going to go … pack. I'm driving back to campus tonight." She wasn't planning on it, but she's just decided now. He doesn't seem to notice.
"Now, Addison," and his voice drops into that conspiratorial tone that makes her stomach ache, "if your mother asks anything-"
"I know the drill," she snaps, scowling. "I'm not an idiot."
"We didn't bring you up to talk like that," he says reprovingly.
You didn't bring me up at all! That's what she'd like to say. Instead she just stands on the edge of the covered tennis courts that smell like fresh yellow balls and listens to the satisfying volley sounds from the games in progress. She'd like to hit something right about now.
Hard.
But Montgomeries don't do that; they turn the other cheek. So she leaves her expression only as insolent as she dares when she turns around to leave.
"Addison," his voice is more gentle now, affectionate even, and she turns back hopefully. "Toss me that water bottle, will you? I'm going to see if Kip Lowell wants to test out that backhand."
"I guess anything is possible," she says finally.
"He seems pretty devoted," Callie observes.
"Maybe I seemed that way too, though, before…" She looks up at Callie. "You do know the beginning of the story?"
"The bare bones."
"I know it makes us look pretty bad."
Callie shrugs. "Everyone has a story."
"We lost all our friends. I mean, Derek was … our best friend, even if that last year we didn't see him as much. And, well, Derek's sisters were some of my closest friends then, and the others… they were, you know, couple friends, or … or people I couldn't face. For a while more people were talking about us than to us and then when the gossip died down, well, it turned out there wasn't anything left at all."
"That sounds pretty lonely."
"Yeah." She takes a sip of coffee to forestall tears, letting the paper edge of the cup still her trembling lips. "Well, we had each other. And the kids, you know."
All she wants is to keep the four of them together. All she wants is everything.
But talking to Callie like this reminds her how long it's been since she's had a real girlfriend, the kind of woman she can actually talk to, confide in. It makes her want to admit everything: that maybe she doesn't even care if it's about sex, but what scares her is the expression on his face in that photograph. Because that expression is just for them. Their family. It's been the four of them against the world for so long. Why would he-
"Torres!"
Addison looks up at the interruption as the other doctor approaches.
Callie tilts her chin. "What are you doing up here, Karev? No boys allowed."
"Yeah, I heard that's your new policy." He gives her a grin that's half-leer. "Don't get excited, I was looking for Dr. Montgomery – not about Annabel, she's stable," he says quickly off Addison's expression. "Torres, the nurse said she was with you and I know your hidey-holes."
"You wish you knew my hidey-holes," she retorts. "Too late now, though…"
Café Bleu vanishes as Addison remembers why Dr. Karev was looking for her: his idea for how to help them.
"So like I told you before - I have an idea." He pulls up a chair and sits down backwards, his expression urgent.
"Remember, I told you about the conjoined-twin surgery with Shepherd, right? That's what got me thinking. Remembering stuff. The hospital was small but they covered the surgery pro bono; they had a sister clinic in Central America, it was a whole thing. It's a private hospital. St. Fiacre."
"The patron saint of cab drivers," Callie muses. "Sorry – Catholic school. Go on."
"They didn't use UniPriv, they weren't NatMed compatible, and we couldn't get reciprocal privileges. We actually had to apply for full privileges instead. It was a huge hassle at the time. Lots of extra paperwork, approvals, all that crap. Look, right now Shepherd can't get reciprocal privileges anywhere because they all depend on Seattle Grace. But the St. Fiacre privileges extend for two years and they aren't reciprocal. Which means," and he pauses for emphasis, "Shepherd's surgical privileges are still active."
Addison inhales sharply. "Okay, so … is the plan to bring Annabel to Houston?" She doesn't want to say this but she's not sure Annabel is capable of another flight. "And wouldn't Derek be flagged once they-"
"No, not Houston. If we tried to bring her to St. Fiacre, they'd have to go back through all the paperwork, and they'd figure it out."
"So what's the plan, then?"
He holds up a grey binder with SGH on the front.
"Hospital by-laws. You read those," Callie says doubtfully.
He gives her a dark look. "I skimmed them. And if I skimmed them correctly – and don't listen to Torres here because I dealt with this when that bigshot cardio … god … showed up from Boston last spring, so I think I'm right. It's the DVE," he taps the binder for emphasis. "Distinguished Visitor Exception."
Callie makes an impatient hurry up gesture.
"Okay, okay, so the way it works," and he flips the binder open to a flagged page, "is that Seattle Grace will grant visiting privileges to 'a physician with active privileges at another institution' for one procedure on the basis of 'distinguished service to the profession and extraordinary ability in a field of practice or study necessary to the procedure.'"
"So?"
Karev glares at Callie again. "So, all you need for a DVE is to be awesome, which Shepherd is, a particular procedure where you want him, which you definitely have…"
"…and active privileges somewhere else," Addison breathes, catching on finally.
Karev nods. "We can use the St. Fiacre privileges to get him a DVE here. They're still active."
Addison's head feels slightly fuzzy, and now she's wishing she'd actually slept. "But this hospital knows about his suspension."
"Sure, but there's nothing in these bylaws about that."
"Kind of sleazy, Karev," Callie sounds impressed, "you ambulance-chaser."
Karev shrugs. "The bylaws say what they say."
"So what do they say?" Addison leans forward, resting her elbows on the table. "What do we need to pull this off?"
"We need his St. Fiacre paperwork – which is easy, because he should have a copy in his copy of his personnel file, which is where I just found mine, in my office, and he needs to sign the forms, and …"
"And what?"
"And we need the Chief to sign this form."
Addison and Callie exchange a glance, and Addison swallows hard.
Karev half-smiles. "There's nothing in here that excludes Shepherd. And we need legal signoff first, anyway. From the hospital's general counsel."
"But what if-" and then her blackberry vibrates and the three of them run in tandem back to Annabel's room.
"I'm sorry, Dr. Montgomery," Susan's voice is gentle; Karev is already gloved and examining Annabel, consulting with Dr. Foster, who arrived before them.
"6:52." Karev peels off his gloves and discards them in the bin. "Twenty-four hours from now is 6:52 a.m. on Monday."
Addison is leaning over Annabel, smoothing back her hair. She's sleeping deeply again, seemingly undisturbed by her seizure.
"Dr. Montgomery."
"Yes." She looks up. "Sorry."
"If they can operate before 7 a.m. tomorrow, it's still outside of business hours."
"Business hours? For a hospital?"
"For the filing."
"But the time difference-"
"Two hours. We can get in under the wire before 9 a.m. central - but the time is going to be tight."
Tight, but possible. Her heart thumps as she considers something.
"This … strategy … Callie said it's sleazy," she begins.
"I meant it as a compliment," Callie protests.
"No, I understand. Sleazy, loophole, whatever, I just mean – Derek has a hearing in a couple of weeks to get reinstated. Couldn't this … cause a problem for those purposes?"
Karev and Callie exchange a glance.
"I don't know what effect it would have. I guess he'll have to weigh that when he decides whether to sign."
Addison nods. Another difficult choice for Derek. If only they could have avoided all of this…
"What about the general counsel? It's Sunday morning … barely."
"I know where to find him." Karev's smile is legitimately mischievous this time. "We just have to figure out how to approach him to get him on board."
"Not like doctors," Addison says.
"Or frantic parents," Callie adds.
"Like…lawyers," Karev grimaces.
Addison looks down again at Annabel's sleeping face. "I need to talk to Derek. This is a … risk we're asking him to take." She checks her blackberry. "He should be at the hotel by now."
"I'll stay and keep an eye on her, let you know when the new scans come in."
"Don't you have patients…"
"I'm technically off today." He scowls at her when she starts to protest. "Cut it out. I'm in this now. I'm the ambulance chaser, right? Every team needs one."
"Her seizures," Addison says softly. "They've been more frequent."
"So go talk to Shepherd. Talk to him and get the rest of the brainiacs back here to figure out how to forestall them."
She can tell something is off as soon as she swings open the door to the hotel suite, ready to share the news of Alex's idea: "You'll never believe what…" but her voice dies down immediately.
There's a strange stillness to the suite, no clamor of neurosurgeons or children's play. It's dim in the cluttered living area; Mark is sitting on one of the wooden captain's chairs, pushed away from the scan-covered table, holding a copy of a newspaper she can tell from across the room is the New York Times. Derek, strangely, is crouched next to him on the floor, wearing his coat, one hand resting on the arm of Mark's chair, his gaze focused on Mark.
She checked her blackberry in the elevator ride up to the suite; no change with Annabel, it can't be that…
"What's going on?"
Derek looks over as if he didn't hear her come in. Mark is still staring at the newspaper.
"Where's Max?" she asks uneasily.
"He's fine, he's downstairs having breakfast with Thomas and the others," Derek says calmly. Addison sees him touch Mark's arm, nodding toward the door, and then he leaves the suite, closing the door quietly behind him.
"Mark?" She sets the folder of scans on the counter and walks over to him slowly, something in his demeanor compelling solemnity when she'd rather run to him. Grab him. "Mark, you're scaring me."
He looks up just for a moment and his eyes look very young for a moment; she sees Max so clearly in their color and shape.
"I'm sorry. It's fine, really," he says woodenly; he's staring at the newspaper again and she can't see his expression.
"What's fine?"
He doesn't respond.
She kneels down in front of him, trying to get him to look at her, and that's when she sees the page that's captured his attention and inhales sharply. "Oh, Mark…."
His voice is quiet, even calm now: "He's dead."
TBC.
Who's dead? You always end up guessing these things in reviews before I post them. Also - what's happening in that stalker picture? And does Alex Karev have a real future as a sleazy loophole-identifier? Thank you for reading; pretty please tell me what you think. I love reviews like NY Addison loves pencil skirts.
Title lyric from Paul Simon's Under African Skies