DEREK'S POV
He runs his hands through his hair
(I've always had a thing for Russell Crowe; red lips tantalisingly close to his own,sultry voice in his ear.)
as he walks away from Mr.Brenneman , the man whose pregnant wife just died on his OR table and who will forever live with the knowledge that he killed his wife,as surely as if he had wrapped his fingers round her throat and strangled her.
He can't bear the man's soft sobs,the smothering weight of his grief ,a moment longer and so he leaves, hoping that at least Addison will have saved the baby,a tiny consolation to the bereaved man behind him.
He heads up to the NICU
(Maybe he's imagining it but the staring is worse here;it's Addison's Kingdom after all.Passive-Aggressiva.)
and finds her leaning against an incubator,stethoscope pressed against the insubstantial chest of the little boy she pulled from his mother's lifeless body.
"I think he'll make it." she says ,still not looking at him.
"I told his father he had a baby boy...didn't seem to get through to him, honestly."
"He's just lost his wife,Derek.That usually hurts most people,they go into shock." At this she looks up at him and her eyes
(That indefinable shifting blue-green-grey color,looking into his own,across a lab table,a candlelit dinner table , OR tables,their joined hands at the altar,across 15 years.)
are accusing and he knows that it's bad this time,that this time there might not be a way to fix what he has broken.
They look at each other across the incubator for a moment and then she pulls away.
(Too easy ,always too easy,to fall back in.)
"I'll talk to the father " she says.
He nods expressionlessly and steps back to let her pass.
She's halfway down the corridor before he catches up
(Long legs; endless in a tiny bikini at the Hampton ,wrapped around his waist,tangled around his in bed, footsie under dinner tables.)
"I'll come with you".
ADDISON ' S POV
They leave the new father in the NICU to stare at his son , and they sit beside him awhile,neither of them eager to go home,content to watch the rhythm of the baby's rising and falling chest,lulled by the soft beep of monitors and the swooshing of the ventilator.
Mr.Brenneman -Samuel,call me Samuel - is silent,teary eyed .
"Th...thank you ,doctors,one more time. I lost my ..my wife today and I'll never see her again . I'll never get to tell her again that I love her,I'll never get this time with her back. She should be here now,she should be here , to...to hold him and to love him but she's not and sh...she'll never be; time just goes so fast ,you know? Like we were so happy and then she told me she was pregnant, and I wasn't ...sure ,yet ,that I was ready and she was moody,irritable and I was just so tired ,so tired of all of it that I had a cheap little affair,j...just sex,I don't even remember her name now,I ...I cheated on her and now she's just gone,so you two...you go home okay,
and you tell your husband and you tell your wife or whoever it is that you love them,you tell your kids you love them,because..it's just so fast ,you know.Time is so... fast, and it's not fair."
"No. It's not fair at all. " says Derek and he says it to Samuel, but he's looking at her.
(Look away.)
"Take care of yourself. " He says to Samuel as he heaves himself wearily out of his chair and walks to the door.
"I'll be back in the morning to check on him,but you shouldn't worry,he'll be monitored all night long." she tells him ,and follows Derek out the door.
Outside at the nurses station she fills in the baby's chart,documenting his brushes with death and his precarious hold on life.
"Addison..." a whisper,uncertain,
(He's never uncertain ,not with her.)
"...we need to talk."
(No Addison,you don't. Be a bigger person.)
She looks at him "There's nothing left to say."
and she walks away.
A WEEK LATER
NICU NURSE
He's here again, He- Shepherd ,lounging hopefully against the glass doors of the NICU,looking around for She -Shepherd no doubt.
He's been here a lot this past week hasn't he?
And he keeps paging Dr Montgomery - Shepherd all the time too.
Hmph.Maybe they've switched roles,the Shepherds,now he's chasing her the way she did when she first came to Seattle and became Head of Neonatal.
(The woman is insanely talented and saves babies and whatever but god is she ever bossy. )
But she's heard rumors too,about the slutty McSex in an exam room
(And they call themselves surgeons.)
so she' s not sure about which pool to bet on yet because it could go either way - maybe they'll divorce or maybe they'll get back together, that little intern Grey has been pretty miserable all week - and didn't Diane from the Surgical ICU see her leave with the vet after the prom?
At that moment Addison Shepherd makes an entrance in a flapping blue OR gown ,trailed by the usual retinue of itern and residents,immediately assailed by nurses with charts and stats and changes in vitals.
He hangs round till she's done,but then she brushes by him,perfect chin held high,not a glance.
Oh.
She'll put 20 on the divorce, then.
DEREK'S POV
He watches Addison all week,tries to get her to talk to him to no avail.
(So goddamn stubborn ,always has been.)
He knows he's hurt her in unimaginably cruel ways and done irreparable damage to their relationship ,but in his own defence he thinks that all he did was to finish demolishing the shining edifice of their marriage after she had already dealt it the fatal blow.
Or had he done that?
The missed dinners and birthdays ,the forgotten anniversaries and parties,skipped Thanksgiving and Christmases.
(But we love Christmas. It's our season ,Derek. )
All those times in New York he told Mark and Addison to "go ahead without me.", had he unwittingly pushed them together, given them the tools to finish what he started?
He needs desperately to escape the tangled rush of memories in his brain;
Addison on their 9th anniversary curled in a ball on the couch dressed in that dress he liked, red to match her hair and clinging in all the right places,frozen with anger ( Not crying,never crying.) at the missed dinner reservation, the anticipated phone call from him that never came...what had it been that time?
That simple but lengthy spinal tumor resection that any other neurosurgeon could have done but he did it anyway.
Addison and Mark,tumbling through the door of the brownstone together ,laden with overnight bags and totes,flushed and laughing,surprised to find him sitting on the couch tight - jawed with anger at being left behind even though he hadn't left the hospital all weekend.
"We went to to the beach house without you ,Derek,sorry, but we just had to get away." with a breezy kiss on the cheek,
"Cmon Shepherd you hate the Hamptons. Give her a break." with a punch in the shoulder,little harder than necessary.
But it wasn't always like that.
Studying all night in med school,bad chinese and amazing sex, getting blackout drunk after exams (counting Mark's drunken conquests) ,him and Addison on long pointless walks in Central Park.
Him and Mark lugging suitcases up to their third floor walk up after med school graduation, long nights on call in the bowls of the hospital quizzing each other and high on laughter and happiness that that they were finally here ,finally real doctors, him and Mark in a jewellers picking out a ring,him proposing to Addison,Mark helping him write that god - awful wedding song,having Mark to dinner 5 times a week in their brownstone to keep him from starving to death because his flavors of the week rarely stayed over.
Neuro residency . Addison's double certification that meant they postponed children . Trying, again and again ,afraid it was too late.
In that last year,even the trying was no longer fun and he had all but checked out.
Two successful practices and two busy surgeons, passing Addison on her way out the door to a conference in Ontario as he was returning from two weeks in Boston and not thinking there was anything wrong
Addison and Mark in their bed, Addison moaning the way he hadn't heard her in months.
Addison selling her practice and moving here,trying as hard as she possibly could to glue them back together,living in his stupid trailer,eating
trout.
Satan,bitch ,adulterous sociopath.Get on your broom,fly back home.
There's a funny taste in his mouth ,the taste of guilt and shame and regret.
It's his turn to try now,his turn to fight for them,and by god he's going to fight hard.
ADDISON ' S POV
All week she avoids him,because she's moving on.
At least that's what she tells herself.
Actually? She's trapped in her head with 15 years worth of memory.
Gross anatomy class ,cutting into a cadaver ,flirting with Derek across the table and groaning at Mark's inappropriate jokes.
Studying in the library together, sneaking into each others dorm rooms.
Spring break spent blissfully alone at the Captain's house on Long Island (No one's ever there anyway.)
Watching movies on that heavy ugly futon couch that she can't remember what they did with it.
Christmas and Thanksgiving with Derek 's happy big noisy family.
Inappropriate sex in on call rooms and linen closets in intern year.
Mark singing that stupid song at the wedding.
Then two separate residencies, her second certification and the discussion of children pushed away
(Dreamt at night of a little girl with her hair and Derek's eyes ,a little boy with apple cheeks and dark curls.)
The cold silent brownstone,the musty smell of a home abandoned for weeks .
One late night too many,she was lonely,Mark at the door on his bike wanting to come in out of the rain,tears and kissing him against the wall of the foyer,greedy ,savoring the taste of him but ruined by the bitter tang of guilt and shame,in the bed.
(paisley sheets.)
Door slamming open, Derek please,please I'm sorry you don't know how sorryI am.Derek ,please if you go - if you go,now,we won't stand a chance.
We're not Derek and Addison anymore.
The comfort of Mark's bed,blissful oblivion every night but each day tortured with regret.
That little plus sign turning blue,the Yankee's onesie and delight in his eyes.
(The wrong eyes they should be blue.)
Staring at bright lights on the ceiling ignoring the sound of the suction, thinking dully how different it is to be the one on the table.
The gym instructor and the tennis partners wife and the downstairs au pair and Charlene the nurse.
Once a manwhore, always a manwhore.
Ignored phone calls. Richard,asking her to come.
Rumors that he was seeing someone, a younger someone.
Calling Mark from the airport,I'm going to Seattle.
Derek and his pretty adoring intern in the lobby,his hands smoothing the collar around her neck.
Christmas makes you want to be with someone you love.
Adulterous bitch ,Satan, Addison what are you doing here.
"Maybe it's for the best" ,she murmurs as she packs the last of her shoes in the trailer.
Sooo. I'm sorry this chapter is short but I have exams. Please review and let me know if you like where it's going. It'll be angsty and nostalgic at first but I promise some happy addek.