I honestly didn't like this chapter, but I needed it to move forward.

I had to use several scenes from the episodes to build the story, but the next ones will follow a more independent line.

AAAAA

After three days of the fight with Derek, things only got harder for Addison.

Some nurses refuse to work with her, other staff give her dirty looks and whisper in front of her with little intent to hide it. Derek only exchanges two words with her a day and Mark still stares at her with hurt and silence.

She gets support from Bailey and Callie, but both women also have their own personal dilemmas.

At the end of the day, she's pretty much alone.

It's another nasty rainy morning, Addison is reviewing the charts just as Mark arrives complaining about the rain. Alex immediately runs to him handing him cappuccino. By the time she raises her drink to her mouth, Mark nearly spits it out as she complains.

"Vanilla?! Are you trying to poison me or make my day even worse?"

"Mark!" Addison scolds him from the chart table. Alex makes the excuse that the clerk must have mixed up the orders and then the plastic surgeon says yes.

"If you don't know how to serve coffee, you're not good for plastic surgery. Maybe you should go back to the vaginal squad since it's all soft and pink."

Mark says the last part staring at Addison who stares back at him in disgust. He then returns the glass to the inmate before taking his leave.

Addison watches Mark walk away as she talks to Alex.

"As soft and pink as it is I have na amazing surgery today, Karev. So if you want…"

"I want."

Alex decrees giving him a half smile before walking away.

AAAAA

After yet another surgery with a reduced team, Addison decides to go to Richard's office. Upon seeing her walk through the door, Richard gives her a compassionate smile and affirms as she sits across from her...

"I haven't seen much of you the last few days, Addie."

"I wonder why."

Addison speaks sarcastically while arching her eyebrows. Richard squeezes her hand across the table and affirms in a soft tone.

"I'm sorry, Addie."

"I'm sorry I created another scandal for the staff at this hospital to be distracted."

"I'm not worried about that. I'm worried about you."

"I am fine."

Addison states in a defensive tone and immediately takes her hand away from his. Richard just whispers her nickname, who then gets up and starts talking anxiously while gesticulating.

"Actually, I'm not fine. I'm terrible, Richard. But it's not what people say or think about me, because none of these people have absolutely nothing to do with the hardest decision I've ever made in my life!"

"Addison, I know." Richard interrupts, but the redhead ignores it and continues talking.

"What makes me feel bad is that my work and especially my patients are being jeopardized. I've already had to cancel surgeries due to lack of staff, nurses and residents who refuse even to hand me a medical record. My surgeries are taking the twice as long, putting patients at risk because the staff is reduced."

She says it all in one breath and then has to stop to catch her breath. It is at this point that Richard calmly asks, gesturing to the chair where she was sitting earlier.

After another deep breath, Addison nods and sits back down. Richard extends his hand to her again, the redhead takes it and he starts to speak.

"Addie, I understand how frustrating this is and I'm really sorry. I can talk to them, one of my boss talks, but what I really think is you should step away for a few days.

"Are you pushing me away?!" Addison asks incredulously, her voice quite raised and her hand flying out of his grasp again.

Richard lets out a long sigh before justifying himself.

"I'm not pushing you away, I just think some time away from all these problems will make you feel better."

"It's not fair! It's not fair that Meredith can't keep her mouth shut, that Derek and Mark don't respect our workplace to vent their hurts and disappointments and I have to walk away."

"I'm not Sloan's biggest fan, I worry about Meredith because of her mother, I look up to Derek a lot, but right now all I care about is you. You and that little baby that's in there and that's why I wanted to see you away from all of this."

Addison gives a small smile at the boss's words. After a few seconds of silence, she speaks.

"I need to work, Richard. I need to get my mind on something other than my personal issues. If I spend all day in that hotel room with no real reason to get up, I'm going to go crazy."

Richard nods, perfectly understanding what she's saying. He then commits. -I'm going to have a meeting with the team, make them understand that they are harming patients before anything else."

"Thanks. It's all I need right now."

"I'm here for whatever you need, Addie."

"I know."

She gives her boss another soft smile and then stands up, walking out of the office.

Addison isn't far from the door when she bumps into Derek. He approaches asking in a smug tone.

"Complaining to the boss?"

"What?"

"I've been hearing about your team deficit."

"You must be finding this very funny, don't you?"

Derek shrugs and Addison starts to walk away. The neurosurgeon takes her arm and asks, sounding more like himself:

"How is the baby?"

"Rest assured that your incubator is doing the job right."

"Addison... Let's be civil, please."

"Oh now you want to be civil? Because when it came time to yell at me for the whole hospital to hear, you weren't concerned about civility."

"I was angry. I'm still angry, but we're going to have a baby together and as impossible as it is, we need to talk without me having to put up with your aggressive passivity."

"Screw you, Derek!"

She yells, surprising them both and drawing stares. Then she takes a deep breath and nods sharply.

"The baby is fine and I need to get away from you."

With that, she hurries away.

AAAAA

After the stressful conversation with Derek, Addison can feel her day going downhill when she sees Mark approaching in the hall. Before the plastic surgeon can give her another hurt look, she turns away.

And so, hiding from Mark, Derek and all the negative looks, Addison is surprised to enter the NICU and find Alex next to one of the babies. She greets him and he begins to explain himself, standing next to him she says:

" Everyone needs human warmth from time to time."

"Too bad. I don't think babies should ever go through that." The young man confesses to being soft and surprising her. Addison asks:

"Is that why you want to be a plastic surgeon? Why do people pay to suffer?"

"It is most of the time, yes."

They stare at each other in silence for a few moments, until Addison says:

"You're right. It really hurts to see them suffer and it will never stop. But when you see a baby recover and go straight home and you're imagining the whole life he's going to have ahead of him, there's nothing better than that. It doesn't get any better..."

She speaks smiling, fully attracting the inmate's attention. But she soon completes:

"But if you want to go back to plastic surgery..."

"No. Vanilla coffee for Sloan today. I made that on purpose."

"Why?"

Addison asks confused. The young man immediately turns towards her and speaks sincerely:

"Because he was mean to you."

Addison's surprised look stares at him for a few seconds and then he leans closer ready to start the kiss. Addison comes over too, but just as their lips are about to brush against each other, a nurse enters, cutting the mood. The two walk away, muttering apologies, and then the boy leaves the room.

Addison leans lightly against the incubator and starts to think about what she almost did, mentally berating herself.

AAAA

After the almost-kiss with Alex Karev, Addison is distraught. She doesn't need this problem in her life anymore, not when there's a baby, na ex-lover hating her, and na ex-husband and father of said baby she can't get along with. But she is alone, depressed and hormonal and that is a dangerous combination. Being alone and depressed had already proven to be a perfect element for disaster while she was married. Alex is just na intern, a 25-year-old who she definitely can't get involved with.

She makes it to work the next morning determined not to go near the boy, but not even the universe will help her.

Realizing once again that she might have another weird hallway encounter with Mark, she quickly turns around and literally bumps into Karev.

The two feel awkward in each other's presence, shake hands awkwardly, talk about the little patient, and have na awkward conversation with Thatcher Grey. In the end, both run away without knowing what to do with what they are feeling.

AAAA

Mark is not well. Between the horrible Seattle weather his body isn't used to, the due date of a missed child he can't get over, and the damage he did to Addison just a few days ago, he's not doing well. And it seems the work of fate when the redhead enters the attendants' room at the same time that he sits down with a cup of tea and Kleenex.

She almost turns around when she sees him but Mark asks surprising her.

"How are you?"

"Apparently better than you."

Mark stares at her with vulnerable eyes and claims to be depressed. Addison feels her anger at him lessen at this point and tries to make things better by leaning against the door frame, she says.

"It's the rain. The constant humidity in the air. It takes time for the body to adapt."

"I don't want to fit in." Mark states irritably as he gets up from his chair. Holding her ground Addison speaks softly.

"Then go home."

"If I had the baby we'd be in New York right now, it wouldn't be raining and even if it was we wouldn't care because we'd be together. Instead I have pneumonia and a former friend who hates me."

"You didn't want to raise a kid, Mark. You just wanted to beat Derek. You just wanted to beat."

"We can still be a family."

Mark speaks ignoring her words and confusing her. Noticing her confused look, he explained.

"We can start over. I can be the father to that baby you're expecting."

"That baby already has a father."

"A father who hates you. Who treats you badly in front of the entire hospital and who is sure to put work before his son like he put before his wife."

"Derek is not like that, not as a father."

"We can go back to New York, we can be together and raise this baby as a happy family."

Mark speaks truly believing her words. Addison is in disbelief at his proposal, incredulous at how deluded he is by what happened in New York, and that's when she explodes.

"I wanted to have the baby. The last woman you slept with before I left New York, Charlene, that nurse. You think she's the only one I found out about? You're turning the whole story upside down Mark. We wouldn't be together we weren't a great couple and you would have been a terrible father. I did want a baby, I just didn't want your baby."

Addison speaks with a crack in her voice and her eyes fill with tears. Mark tries to fight back, but she ends the conversation.

"This is Derek's baby and despite all our problems I know the kind of father he will be so please stop making things worse. I'm so sorry about our baby but it was the right decision and one day you will understand that."

Without giving him a chance to say anything else, Addison leaves. She feels lighter after getting the whole truth out there, she feels she is finally free of the ghost of her romantic relationship with Mark Sloan.

AAAAA

After the awkward conversation with Mark and yet another awkward encounter with Alex, Addison doesn't feel like going back to her empty hotel room. The redhead then finds herself sitting in a booth at Emerald City and ordering a ginger ale, she earns a sly smile from Joe as he hands her the drink.

A few minutes later, Alex approaches her, he arches his eyebrows and asks.

"You should be here?"

"And soda."

Addison says raising her glass. So she continues.

"I didn't want to go back to my lonely hotel room today."

"I can?"

Alex asks pointing to the chair next to her. The redhead nods and asks out of nowhere.

"Do you have a father?"

To which Alex denies it, she approaches, caresses her face and does what she wanted to do a few days ago, gives her a soft and quick kiss. Soon Addison pulls away, but Alex doesn't hesitate to pull her to him again.

Derek and Meredith walk through the Emerald City door smiling, but the neurosurgeon freezes as soon as he sees his ex-wife making out with another man. He feels his stomach lurch, his hands shake and all he wants to do is pull the intern away from her. Meredith notices Derek's discomfort and asks.

"Bother you?"

"Of course it bothers me. She's expecting my child."

"You're going to have a baby with her and date me."

"I should go there and get it over with."

"Of course Derek! Go there and disrupt the ex-wife's night that you cheated on and made the entire hospital hate. What could go wrong isn't it?"

She says angrily before practically running out of the bar. Derek remains standing in the same place, he ponders for a few moments, but finally realizes that the blonde is right and leaves the establishment after her. Even leaving the bar, jealousy continues to bubble in his blood.

AAAAA

Remembering that my mother tongue is not English and that I don't own Grays.