The continuous shriek of the monitor echoed in the operating suite. Silence surrounded her, and she lifted her watch upward, hardly masking her defeat.
"Time of death, 2:14 am."
Seventeen hours. Between labor, delivery, and finally, surgery, Addison had been with this baby for seventeen hours.
"Boki." The technologist paused, before leaving the room, hanging back as the others filed out, one by one. "I'd like to close him off." Addison rubbed her eye with her forearm, her arms still up, as though she needed to remain sterile.
"Understood, Doctor Montgomery." It would only take a few minutes, she knew.
"Markus." Kaira's voice pulled her attention, for the briefest moment, and then Addison lowered the suture passed to her. "Would you-"
"You and Doctor Ahred may go, Doctor Reyes. Thank you for everything you've done tonight." Kaira only nodded, the back of her hand tapping Addison's spine on the way out- high, friendly. Apologetic.
They both knew this happened, yet Kaira… Kaira knew her too. To Kaira she was no longer just Satan, ruler of all that was evil. She was more. More human.
With a twist, Addison tied off the last suture, resting her tools in the tray beside her and peeled away her mask. Two officers were in the waiting room, standing forlornly off to the side from the only other two patrons awaiting emergent surgery. These were the two Addison approached, crossing her arms over her scrubs.
"As you know, the infant was prematurely born, under extreme distress from severe narcotic addiction." She paused, gathering herself briefly. She could do this, she was cold. "After approximately three hours and sixteen minutes of extensive surgery to try and repair the newborn's gastrointestinal tract, he was pronounced dead at 2:14 am." The younger officer was ashen, scribbling her statement into his notepad as she spoke, detailing the surgical procedures and answering only a handful of questions, before shaking both officer's hands. "We did everything we could." They thanked her, and Addison turned back toward the elevator. Her fingers paused at the buttons, and instead of upward, she pressed down.
The morgue was cold, silent. It was darker than the rest of the hospital, and she knocked once on the office door.
"Excuse me." She started softly, crossing her arms and scowling at the medical examiner on duty. "The infant from suite 3-"
"You want to see him?" The woman asked softly, tilting her head to the side, dislodging her dirty- blonde hair from in front of her eyes. Addison paused, and then nodded. She followed the woman to one of the drawers, when she looked back. "The autopsy is being done in the morning. I… swaddled him for the night." She touched Addison's elbow. "I'm going to go on break for about ten, if that works for you."
"Thank you." She watched the medical examiner retreat, pulling the drawer with a click that ruined the silence of the room, echoing. "You never even had a chance." Addison sighed, brushing her fingers over the edge of the blanket, over still, pasty cheeks. She glanced briefly behind herself, wrapping an arm around the blanket and lifting him against her breast. He didn't even have a name for her to call him. Nobody had held him. She pushed back against the tears of a too- long day, laying the infant back down in his casket, turning back toward the doors.
She went through the rest of her motions robotically, scrubbing away the morgue, nodding to the medical examiner, re-entering the main hospital hallway, changing back into her dress for the day. The pouring rain gave her pause only under the awning at the door, and Kaira finally caught her.
"Hey." Kaira's breath brushed her ear, and she released the softest of sighs as hands rubbed her arms. "I know." Addison laid her head back, closing her eyes for a moment of darkness against the brilliantly bright fluorescent lights. "I know." Kaira's arms wrapped around her, and she slumped for a moment, safe. Warm. Addison pulled away, shaking out her hair and turning to fish in her purse. "You have an umbrella in there?"
"No." Addison couldn't help but laugh, shaking her head at the note of hope in the anesthesiologist's voice, when a hand caught hers.
"Excellent."
"Hey-" she was pulled forward, into the sheets of rain from the darkened sky. "What are you -" but the tears that had threatened her forced their way to the forefront, her exhaustion level too high to fight them. The rain soaked her through almost instantly, and Addison's hand lifted from her purse to Kaira's chest, holding only her keys. A nameless, unloved child had died in her hands today. He had deserved so much better. He deserved life.
"I know." Kaira's voice brought her back, one hand rubbing her back as the other weaseled between her fingers and the key ring. "Give me these." Addison looked up, eyes stinging with tears and rain.
"I just want to go home." But Kaira's forehead touched hers, and the hand on hers caught her chin gently. "Let me go home."
"Close your eyes." Addison rose a brow, parting her lips slightly. "Just close them. I'm going to break your precious rule, and I don't want you to see me do it." Their entire relationship was structured on rules. No- one could know. It was just sex, no strings, monogamous or not. No dates. No kisses. It wasn't supposed to mean anything. She tightened her fingers in Kaira's collar, frightened for the briefest of moments. Feelings made things complicated. Feelings changed things. Once she opened herself up to feelings, she would be left behind. Again, and again, and again.
Addison let her eyes close.
Kaira's mouth was soft, the way her hands were every time she needed comfort or reassurance. Every time she hadn't slept, or was pushing herself too hard to perform better, to make up for past mistakes. Their tongues touched, Addison losing the ability to fight her tears any longer, feeling them spill over her cheeks alongside each drop of rain. Her fingers loosened against the collar, tightening again only when Kaira's hand gripped hers. She rubbed the other over the doctor's forearm, tracing her neck, brushing her thumb over Kaira's cheek. The wind buffeted them, threatening to push them sideways alongside the rain- and yet Addison hardly felt it.
Kaira ended their kiss, sighing softly against her parted lips, and Addison had only one thought.
Again.
Don't stop.
Never stop.
Hand covered hers instead, squeezing briefly before tugging her keyring from between her fingers.
"Can I have these please?" Addison nodded, withdrawing both of her hands. The wind cut through them as Kaira stepped back, running her hand down her arm to take her palm in her own. "Thank you. Come on."
"I'm-" She looked back at the hospital. On call, she was going to say. But Kaira was already shaking her head.
"Not after being soaked through. Plus." She tugged Addison's hand. "It's been a long shift and a very, very long day. Let's go."
"Thank you." She turned back, letting herself be tugged away from the lights, back towards the lot. "The ferry's not running with the rain though."
"We're going to my house." Kaira held up the keys, wrapping her arm around Addison's waist as the hospital began to shrink behind them. "These just help not feeling as though you're being stabbed the entire way home. I usually Uber or something if it's raining." They walked slowly, despite the wind, already soaked through. Kaira was a passable rain shield, and Addison stole a glance toward her out of the corner of her eye. Kaira was looking up at the sky, the corner of her mouth twisted slightly upward. Happy. Genuinely happy. The way she was whenever she thought Addison wasn't quite awake yet, wouldn't notice the softness in the hands that held her as she woke. Addison paused at the side of her car, door being pulled open for her, scrambling to lay out a handful of towels from the backseat. Addison looked left again, as Kaira pushed the seat slightly back, settling behind the wheel. She leaned over, pressing her lips to her cheek briefly. One more time. Like a drug addict.
"Thank you." Addison breathed softly, leaning back into her own seat. Kaira rolled her eyes, twisting in the seat to look behind the car as they backed out, smiling crooked.
"Anytime." A moment passed. "Literally anytime." The drive was long, dreary, and both wet and cold, despite the heat from the car. Yet Kaira's hand on her knee was warm, and Addison found herself holding it as she watched the little bit of landscape she could see pass them by. "Ever been this way?"
"No." Addison answered truthfully, before Kaira turned into a driveway shrouded by trees. "Please tell me you don't live in a trailer parked on hunting land for the view." She added, sour. Kaira barked a note of laughter, shaking out her hair.
"Hardly. Far from. You have a house in the Hamptons right? And a Brownstone, if the rumor mill is still turning."
"It seems to be functioning as well as ever." Addison camped her arm on the center console, resting her chin in it.
"And you still lived in a camper at the state park?"
"For a man." Kaira glanced at her, then turned back to the driveway, shaking her head.
"Men." And then Addison is talking, telling her everything.
Everything about Derrick. Everything about Mark, and then Alex. And then she's talking about Los Angeles, and how she's done nothing but do everything wrong. She simply keeps talking, until she doesn't have to say anything else, for the forest seemed to part like the sea, splitting open to expose an open field. Addison's breath caught when she saw the first building. Her own house in the Hamptons was large, as was the Brownstone, and it was still nothing compared to this estate. The driveway flared out around a stone courtyard, bathed in yellow- orange from lit windows, forcing Addison to turn aside, lips parted. Even in the darkness of the night, she could tell it was stone; fashioned with tall, sloped roofs and massive paned windows as though it were a cathedral. In the center, an archway, and as they drove through, Kaira only shrugged. "It looks better in the daylight." Addison shook her head as Kaira rose, stretching, and opened her door to offer a hand. "Want to-" she tilted her head to a set of double doors, a light in a literal tunnel. "Come inside?"
"You still… Want me to?" Addison took the hand, rising, but Kaira only matches it with a small smile, and a look Addison can't quite place. She's doing her best to take everything in with each step, starting with the house. The exterior was magnificent, and the interior of the house matched flawlessly; many of the walls were slate gray, brick where the fireplace met furnished walls. Tears pricked at the corners of Addison's eyes, for the third time that day, and Kaira stopped hard. "You okay?"
"I've been…" she swallowed, shaking her head from side to side. "I've been living at Archfield since returning to Seattle, and-" she let her expression finish the statement, a set of rapid blinks, shaking her head again. "And this place is just… it's beautiful. It's…" everything, she wanted to finish. Incredible, like its owner. Completely different from every house she had made with every man in her life up until now, as Kaira is different from all her predecessors. Kaira wrapped her arms around her, pulling her close, remaining silent as feelings warred within her. Home. It was a home.
"You're welcome to stay. If you'd like." Silence. It wasn't that Addison didn't want to, far from it.
But again, in the pit of her stomach, was the fear that she would, once again, ultimately screw this up. She had already acknowledged all of it on the way here. Cheat, walk away, say the wrong thing at the wrong time. Do something, anything, that would push Kaira away. "Here, come on. Master bath's this way." And so she let herself be tugged along, for the moment, unable to answer, and ultimately glad that she wouldn't be pressed to do so.