ADDISON'S POV
She's sitting on the trailer deck in the gathering dark, stealing sips of Derek's beer but refusing to get her own.
They've always done this; shared food and drinks. Clichéd, but it's one of their things.
Nancy has decamped to a hotel, having taken one look at the trailer and refused to
" set foot in that tin can." as she so eloquently put it.
Addison always knew there was a reason why she liked Nance.
They've found the perfect apartment, too , they're slated to move in in a week.
So she's sitting here , supposed to be looking over blueprints Derek has drawn for the house he wants to build.
Privately, she thinks he's lost his mind; he can't even find the damn blueprints in the cluttered trailer.
She knows they need to talk; these weeks together have been blissfully perfect with the exception of the New York trip, but they can't exist in this bubble forever.
This is what you do , Addison, you run away from your crap and everything's fine and lovely till it's not anymore. Derek deserves better, if he's giving you this second chance, he needs to know what he's getting into.
She just can't bring herself to drag up this discussion though because he's just so happy, and it's like their golden years again, he looks at her with so much love and trust she doesn't want to be the one to extinguish that happy sparkle again.
"Got em!" he yells from inside the trailer, and comes crashing out on to the deck with the prints in hand.
"Scoot over." there's another lounger on the deck but she remembers that this is another one of their things, cuddling. Derek's a big cuddler.
She slides over willingly - its big enough anyway- and he fits his body along the length of hers, one arm around her shoulders and the other in her lap holding the prints.
She tucks her head under his chin and rests on his shoulder, snuggling into his warmth and breathing in his smell.
Grow up, Addison .
" Derek, we need to - "
" Talk."
She lifts her head from his shoulder in surprise; Derek hates this sort of thing too.
"I talked to Nancy this afternoon, and she managed to make me believe that if we're gonna work this out - be the way we used to be, then we won't get anywhere unless we know where we're going , exactly, and where we're coming from, so yeah, we need to talk.
Proud of me much? "
She flops back down on him, relieved that he's the one who initiated this. " Very proud, dear husband. Very mature."
He kisses the top of her tousled head " I can be , when I want to."
"Also, I like the way you say husband. " He kisses her ear, then her jaw.
She loses herself for a moment , savors this last bit of bliss before she blows it all to hell .
" Derek. Talk. Remember? "
" Later ? Please ?"
Reluctantly she pushes him away - later sounds excellent, especially with the way he was just kissing her - but they can't keep using hot sex to diatrct themselves and let their emotional clusterfucks pile up higher and higher till it all explodes.
" Derek."
" Ok." he pulls back .
" Wait. We are going to take turns. You go , then I'll go. Or we'll just keep talking over each other and get nowhere."
She stares at him dumbfounded "What did Nancy do to you ?"
"Made me realise I'm an idiot, among other choice adjectives. "
" Better her than me. And look - if you want to yell, yell. We are in the middle of the woods , no one can hear you."
" Again with the trailer. ..."
" Okay, okay, who's going first?"
" You?"
"All right. " she sits up again a little, heart aching for what she's about to do to him.
" Hear me out okay, all the way. Then you can yell. And Derek - no matter what I'm about to say, I love you. I love you so damn much it hurts and it...it kills me to do this but you deserve the truth . So just remember that I have always loved you , from the day we met."
She takes a deep breath , looks down. It's beautiful out here in the late evenings, sun setting over trees in a glorious wash of reds and purples and yellows streaked with cool clear blue and for a moment she just takes in the peace of it all, the fresh air and chirping crickets, willing it to steady her voice.
No anesthesia.
" Mark. He wasn't just a one night stand. We lived together, for two months . After you left. I loved him Derek - at least I thought I did - but he's Mark and I. ...caught him with someone else. That brought me to my senses and I came out here. " by the end if it she's nearly whispering, tears blurring her vision.
She feels him tense up, his arm tightens around her shoulder and suddenly she flashes back to last night in the brownstone and she's suffocating, heart racing.
But then he pulls his arm away and that's somehow worse.
He opens his mouth and a ragged breath comes out, but its best to get it all out at once so she goes on in a choked whispered rush.
" And I'm so sorry, I'm sorry Derek and I hate myself for this but I. ...I got...I got pregnant, Derek.
I was pregnant with his baby and I have never hated myself so much. I always wanted a baby, Derek, but with you, I wanted your baby, and I couldn't. ... I just couldn't do it so I. ...I aborted it, I aborted Mark's baby."
He looks so tortured in that moment that she can't stop the hot tears that burst silently from their dam, coursing down her cheeks in a parade of shame.
DEREK'S POV
He remembers the day Addison had her miscarriage, she was fine that morning, went to work as usual. She was in the OR doing a myomectomy, he remembers, a long and difficult surgery because the tumor was too big, too vascular.
He knows this because he dropped into the gallery to talk to her over the speaker, ask her how long she'd be because he was taking her out to dinner that night .
She looked up at him, eyes apologetic over the mask that covered her face, said she'd been here three hours already and would probably need three more.
He remembers that he was worried about her spending so long on her feet, he told her to take a break, get some water.
"Watch her for me Sally." He called to her scrub nurse , who was the only person at the hospital who knew about the pregnancy; Derek had insisted she tell her so that if something happened in surgery. ... . Addie rolled her eyes, shooed him away with a motion of her bloody hand.
He remembers he didn't stay. He had a surgery too.
He remembers a bug - eyed intern barging into his OR two hours later, telling him to get down to the fourth floor NOW.
Fourth floor is OB GYN.
Nonononono. Jesus Mary and Joseph don't do this to Addie.
He remembers Addie on a gurney, writhing under bloodstained sheets.
Ectopic pregnancy they said, never had a chance.
They never had the chance to even get their first ultrasound.
Addie's blood pressure dropped dangerously low, she'd lost so much blood internally they transfused her with four units.
It's always like this with Addie, the damage on the inside so much worse than what she lets you see on the outside.
Hypovolemic shock, they said.
In med school they don't teach you that you go into into shock too , watching the one you love in pain .
She woke up a few hours later, Fallopian tube salvaged but minus the baby she had so wanted .
She was inconsolable, kept saying it was her fault, she should have taken a break , gotten off her feet.
The world's foremost neonatal and maternal fetal surgeon, blaming herself for an ectopic pregnancy that was doomed the day it began.
Shock, they said, of a different kind.
He gets away from her like she's burned him, stands at the end of the deck facing the trees because he can't look at her, not now.
He runs his hands through his hair, fists them and wonders what it would be like to pull his hair out and scream like in the movies.
Those cold lonely days after the miscarriage, Addie pushing him away because she was so suffocated by his grief.
No , Derek I can't try again, not now , not so soon.
It wasn't just a fetus, Derek, it was a baby, our baby just died and you want to replace it like a ...a broken thing or something, like that's going to make me feel better?
She replaced it. With another man's baby.
Mark's baby.
She killed that one too.
He can hear her now, sobbing softly on the deck chair.
Hate and rage bubbles up in him and he swings around like he's on autopilot and he's dragging Addie out of the chair, sodden with tears he can't stand the sight of.
"YOU FUCKED MY BEST FRIEND, ADDISON AND I BELIEVED YOU WHEN YOU SAID IT WAS A ONE NIGHT STAND.
I'VE BEEN KILLING MYSELF THIS WHOLE TIME THAT I HAD AN AFFAIR AND YOU JUST HAD ONE NIGHT WITH MARK , BUT IT WASN'T ONE NIGHT WAS IT ADDISON, NO, LIKE THE WHORE YOU ARE YOU LIVED WITH HIM FOR TWO MONTHS - TWO MONTHS - AND YOU GOT PREGNANT WITH HIS CHILD AND NOW YOU TELL ME."
He takes deep steadying breaths, the ground is spinning under his feet and his voice is hoarse.
" You're a coward that's what you are." He spits venomously, not caring that he's tearing her to pieces, glorying in the tears now openly pouring down her face.
"You're a fucking cowardly baby killer, that's what you are, it wasn't enough that you killed my child, you went and killed his too - or was it even his, Addison?
I mean, how many other men did you fuck? You think you're god, saving babies in surgeries all day long, but outside where it really matters you're a murderer.
Satan, remember?
You're a murderer, Addison Montgomery, a selfish killer , god knows how many babies you've killed , and here I've been all along, trying to make it work with you, and you've probably been screwing someone else this whole time, haven't you, you just can't get enough, you bitch - "
She's on her knees in the dirt now, sobbing in deep gaspy breaths, face in her hands.
How dare she hide, hide from him, from Mark after what she's done.
He thinks of Mark , the puppy look in his eyes when he looks at his wife, and wondered what he looked like when Addison told him she'd killed his child.
Did she tell him?
He can't fucking stand the sound of her anymore, he yanks her up to her feet roughly and she tries to take his face in her hands like she did in New York when he caught them together and that's what tips him finally over the dangerous edge he's been teetering on.
He doesn't know what he's doing, can barely feel his limbs through his tingling rage, all he knows is that he can't stand to have her touching him, and he lashes out with his left hand, pushing her away ,in the pitch darkness that has fallen he feels it strike flesh and the remorse is so brief it's barely there.
He barely hears her cry out through the sound of blood pounding in his ears,with a bellow of sorrow and fury he flings the beer bottle still in his hand into the darkness. It shatters somewhere.
Addison doesn't bother to get off the ground , he notices.
Spineless cowardly bitch.
"You deserved it , every second of every painful humiliating minute I've put you through, with Meredith, with everything.
You deserved to lose our baby, you deserved your shitty parents caring so little about you they don't even know you've left New York yet - they don't care about you, you know, and I know why - you're just a fucking useless whiny stuck up bitch who cares about yourself, just yourself."
He can't even get up the will to scream anymore.
"Come on , Addison, get the fuck up. Aren't you going to grovel- "sorry Derek I'm so sorry."- he mimics a high nasal tone that's nothing like her at all.
" Oh but of course you won't, because that's what you do, you fucking run when it doesn't go your way, it always has to be how you want it doesn't it - "
He realises belatedly that she's not saying anything at all, that he can't even hear the grating sound of her sobs anymore.
"Addison? " he calls out sharply. " Get up for gods sake, for once in your life face your mistakes -"
And the sight at his feet makes his blood run cold, because Addison hasn't run off into the woods to escape him like he'd thought, she's lying on her side with her head in the wooden deck, her skin slick with blood from where the rough wood edge has sliced into her temple, trickling from a cut in her cheekbone and from her arm - why is her arm sparkling - and he bends to look and almost throws up when he sees that the bottle he flung has shattered beside her and she must have rolled into it when she tried to get up.
While he yelled at her.
So much blood.
" Addison don't move , don't move , I'm taking you to the hospital. "
Everything is a blur through his tears from then on, running practised fingers over Addie's bloodied head to check for fractures -that he caused - and thank god there are none, getting her into the car because an ambulance will take forever , driving like a bat out of hell to Seattle Grace.
The only clear point is Addie groping for his hand as he lifts her into the backseat, and what she says is a cold dagger in his heart because after everything she's still looking out for him.
"Don't tell them Derek , don't tell them what happened .I fell okay , Derek, I fell and that's it. Promise me. Please."
and he does, if only because there's no time to argue .
BAILEY'S POV
It's quiet in the ER tonight, but of course she can't say that out loud or she'll jinx it.
But it's quiet, and she's grateful for the momentary peace because at home its always the baby crying and Tucker nagging at her so today she has done herself a favor and volunteered to cover the night shift in the pit.
The phone at the nurses station rings, shrill and needy.
What damn fool paramedic is calling on the phone?
The EMTs never call on the direct line unless it's an emergency, the ambulance dispatcher calls them on his special line.
So the phone ringing is either a very, very bad trauma, or some poor new EMT is about to have his ass handed to him by Miranda Bailey.
" Yes, Dr. Shepherd , of course."
Shepherd?
"What that damn man want now?" she asks the confused looking nurse still clutching the phone.
She's new too.
" It was Dr.Shepherd, uh, Derek Shepherd, he sounded really freaked out, said something about uh Dr. Montgomery - Shepherd - she fell or something, he said to page. ...you. And Chief Webber ."
" I'm here aren't I , so go page Dr. Webber, don't stand there." she snaps.
She's suddenly worried; Addison Shepherd is one of her favorite people in this hospital, and what could possibly have happened that Derek wouldn't wait for an ambulance ?
She remembers that they were going to look at rentals, Addison said that in the scrub room today while she was scrubbing out and Bailey was scrubbing in and she remembers that the older woman looked thrilled to be moving out of the trailer they lived in.
" Bailey? What happened?" it's the Chief, worry etched on his face.
The Shepherds are like kids to him, to Adele too.
" I dunno , Chief , the He - Shepherd called in about five minutes ago, said Addison 'd fallen or something. Sounded scared, apparently."
They glove up, slide trauma gowns over their scrubs.
The familiar beat up Jeep swerves into the ambulance bay, horn blaring and Derek nearly falls out the door, yelling for a gurney.
She and the Chief jump forward, it's a dance that they do everyday and they know the steps by heart , set to the tune of ambulance sirens and racing hearts.
It's different this time, because there aren't any sirens and the bloodied body Derek lifts single handedly onto the gurney is one of their own.
"Derek what happened? " the Chief's demands, and is answered not by Shepherd who looks like he's going to lose his dinner on the floor, but by Addison.
" I fell." she coughs out, then giggles. "So stupid, it was dark..."
"Is she drunk?" Bailey looks at the pale neurosurgeon.
" N-no."
"You fall off your stupid shoes, honey?"
" Something like that. "
As they wheel her into trauma one, Derek turns and vomits on the dark cemented walkway, choking on bile and shame, tears falling into the sick smelling puddle.
RICHARD ' S POV
" 38 year old female - "
" Hey, keep it down. " Addison laughs hoarsely.
- deep laceration to the left temple, puncture wounds and embedded glass in the right arm , small laceration on the right cheekbone and bruising to the face , left chest and abdomen." rattles off the triage nurse.
"Addie, sweetie, we need you to tell us wha t happened here." He tells her, but of course she knows that.
He sniffs. She smells like beer and fresh mud, it's caked with the blood in her hair and her clothes.
" It's dark, Richard, out by the trailer, and I slipped , hit my head on the deck."
" And this?" he gestures to what is clearly a bottle stuck in bits in her arm.
"There was a bottle lying there, I rolled on to it when I was trying to get up, clearly I'm heavy enough to break it to pieces ."
"You two have got to get a house." He mutters, reaching for a suture kit.
"Get me some gauze and Betadine! " Bailey yells.
" And Addie what are these?" he asks, trailing a gloved hand over her wrist.
"Oh , we were packing up yesterday, you know, and I banged around a lot. Boxes and stuff , heavy things, clumsy me."
BAILEY'S POV
It's plausible.
It's entirely plausible, or at least it would be if Derek weren't sitting outside trauma one with his head in his hands, smelling of vomit and beer instead of inside where he should be, no one asked him to leave.
It would be, if she didn't know for a fact that Addison is OCD about cleanliness , even in the trailer, and would never let him leave a bottle lying by the deck like a drunkard.
It would be , if she didn't know Addison Shepherd to be a highly intelligent woman capable of pulling the wool over just about anyone's eyes, and blindly loyal to her husband.
Her husband, who is red eyed and frantic over a little blood, when he sees oceans of it on a daily basis.
And Miranda Bailey is not just anyone, but it's not her place to voice her suspicions.
" Page Dr. Torres. " she orders.
CALLIE ' S POV
She's just about to leave the hospital and meet Arizona (!) when her pager goes off.
"Noooo." she mumbles, reaching for it automatically and continues to walk towards the exit - Heron can take it, she just signed over to her as the on - call resident - but when she sees what it is she takes off for the ER .
" Addie, what the hell?"
" What are you doing here, you have a date!" Addison demands, widening her eyes , which has a weird effect seeing as her right eye has a deep purple bruise forming under it.
There are tiny puncture marks on her arm, along with the bruises she'd seen this morning , a thin deliberate looking cut on her perfect cheekbone and a nasty gash in her temple, which has been covered with a bandage.
She's got mud in her hair and blood on her clothes and she smells like. ...beer, but she's incongruously sober.
"How exactly did you fall? Off your highest heels, into a crate of bottles?"
" Callie, go on your date."
She picks up Addison's hand " So you fell , hit your head on the deck, rolled on a bottle and - what? A unicorn came by and nicked your face with its horn? And punched you in the cheek?"
" Callie. I fell."
" Yeah." she snorts. "And I'm straight."
Addison blinks mulishly at her.
So stubborn.
Is this what you call rough, too?" Callie knows she's being harsh , but doesn't she see this is how it starts, this is what they all say, I fell, the age-old hiding place of jerky assholes.
" Callie, I just need you to be my friend right now, okay? So shut it ."
" No, Addison, I can't shut it. You can either tell me how you fell, or I can go call the cops and you can tell them about rough."
" Callie. " the bruised redhead
sighs."Please."
" You have three seconds. "
They stare each other down, brown into stormy sea green, until Callie turns and reaches for the door.
"He didn't hit me." Addison relents .
" Really. "
" Yes, really . He pushed me, I fell. "
" Right on a bottle. "
" He threw it there, I rolled onto it. "
"And this? " she asks, gesturing to her friends pretty face.
"He was trying to - to push me away, got my face with his ring. "
" What in gods name were you two doing up there? "
" Talking? "
" Is this the truth, Addie? All of it?"
" Yeah. " she whispers, suddenly looks away, unable to face her.
Callie sinks onto the bed, wraps her arms round the slim shaking shoulders.
" Sweetie, what did you talk about?"
" What I told you about. Mark's baby."
And that's it, that's all she can take because she breaks into body racking sobs, trembling in her arms like her soul is breaking apart.
After this, I'm going to go find a hammer.
So! Still with me? Please stay I promise I'll make it worth your while.
Also, review with any suggestions or reviews you might have !