Addison may never really know what woke her that night.
She hums with soft discontent at the disturbance to her mid- sleep, dragging one arm over her eyes as though there's a need to block out the light. She remembers getting in late, for it had been one of those rarer nights, where Meredith had left work first, and she'd done little more than drop her clothes to the floor and crawl in beside her beneath their shared sheets.
"Mer?"She groans out the word, feeling the shift in her weight, and drags her arm languidly off her eyes. It's something about the way Meredith's sitting up that has her suddenly wide awake and alert, pushing herself up on one arm as she drags the back of her hand up under the hem of her girlfriend's shirt. She finds her skin clammy, almost wet, to the touch. Nothing but concern ascends up her spine, a bolt of terrified lightning traveling directly to the front of her mind.
And then Addisoncalms, because she too, is a surgeon at heart.
She presses her nose into the side of Meredith's neck, feeling the almost sickening heat radiating off the younger woman's skin through the soft warmth of her lips, of the open mouthed kiss she presses to the nape of her neck. With deft, long fingers, she scrapes her hair over one shoulder, off to the side, letting it fall forward in haphazard waves.
"Meredith, baby, lie back in the bed." Meredith turns her head, in a whole- hearted attempt to meet her gaze.
"Addie, I don't feel so good." With a sad smile, Addison trails her lips up the side of her head, her touch soft and serene, as calm as she could don't look so good either,she fully agrees, coaxing Meredith to descend back down with a hand on her waist and its mate on her spine.
"I know, precious girl." Meredith's breath rattles into her chest, and Addison tilts her head ever so slightly towards one side. She pushes her tired body up onto her knees, pressing her mouth once more to Meredith's head. "I'll be right back. You stay right there." Her fingers linger over the bone of Meredith's collar as she counts out her pulse. She only pads off to the bath when she's satisfied with the result, the corner of her lip turned downward in a bit of distaste. Based on symptoms alone, there are a few things it could be. The most likely of course, is a common cold, but Addison's always been one to err on the side of caution; unless, of course, it came to the health of herself. But she loves Meredith more than words that they haven't yet said, and she'd travel to the very end of the Earth for her if that's what it took for her to be safe. She closes her end two fingers over a little white pill, loads a pile of crap into the crook of one arm.
"JesusChristMeredith." She curses, but even the curse comes out rather fond; she can't help not being mad, despite the way the blonde is slumped back over her knees, sitting back up if more than a little bit skew. Blue eyes catch her own on the approach, and with a completely serious face, Meredith speaks.
"Did you rescue the bunnies?" The words are a little bit skewed, a half- step from slurred, and she blinks a few times. And then she thanksGodthat she works in peds, and she's seen children come out of a gas- induced high more times than she can count.
"The bunnies? Of course. All eleven."
"Oh. Okay good." Meredith flops back down into their sheets, and it takes everything in Addison not to bark out a laugh at how positively adorable Meredith is, even half delirious in a fever- induced state. She splays one hand over the blonde's chest as she stretches out, reaching out for her things. "Addie?"
"Yes baby girl?"
"There were fourteen." She cracks a smile at that, rolling her lip between teeth at the same time she threads a hand through Meredith's hair, her thumb over brow.
"Of course, Yang has the other three." Meredith's arms hook over her back, forehead bumping into her chest as she sighs in relief. "Take your pill." But Meredith shakes her head no, shaking blonde locks into her chest. Addison presses the tips of her fingers into her lower lip, ever insistent in her request. "Pretty please."
"Pretty, like you."
"Oh, precious girl." She hums, feeling the warmth of Meredith's tongue on her thumb. "Good girl. I…"Love thinks, for the thousandth of times. And for the thousand- and- first, the word forms a lump in the back of her throat. Meredith swallows, and quietly sighs. She looks tired, but a little less hot, and Addison peels her towel away from the curve of her throat. She busies herself with replacing the compressing piece of cloth when a hand on her thigh makes her pause, lips slightly parted.
"I love you." Meredith's voice isn't clear, and at first she thinks she's misheard. Her neck jerks, and those beautiful blue eyes she's positively enamored by are hazy, a little unclear. Addison wills the threat of tears to keep themselves at bay, even as they burn at the backs of her eyes. She's wanted to hear it for so long it's almost unfair, and like this is almostworsethan her endless cycle of self inadequacy and despair.
"Addie." Meredith's voice is again thick with fog, and she rubs her thumb almost waywardly over the curve of her hip as they move back down into the blankets and sheets. A part of her hopes they're back to the bunnies, the bigger part of her begs that Meredith will simply say itagain,sing those three words she so desperately craves straight into her ear. "Thank you."The blonde mumbles into her chest instead, and Addison lifts her hand to cup the side of her cheek. She should have just said it too, she decides, but the words stuck in her throat at just the right time, made her choke as though they were anywhere else, as though Meredith were anyone else.
Addison tries desperately not to dwell, stinging tears finding their own way over the bones of her cheeks.
It hits Meredith a bit like a tsunami wave, when her feverfinallybreaks. She props herself up on her arms slowly, as though she's testing her weight before committing fully to being upright. There's a soft little hum as she remembers all of the things, all of her words and everything that she's ,she thinks, followed by,and Addison hums through soft lips as she too begins once more to wake.
"Hey."She mumbles, through her own sleep- riddled haze, fingertips trailing the exposed skin of Meredith's torso with feather- like touch. "How are you feeling?" The blonde takes a moment to take all of her in; her messy, tangled red hair, the smudged lines around the bases of her eyes.
"Sweaty and sticky, and not in the right ways." Meredith giggles, leaning down to brush her lips over Addison's cheek, letting her thumb gently rub at the streaks left by her tears. She hopes against hope that shedidn'tmake Addison cry, yet Meredith Grey knows better than to lie. "But better."
"Better is all that counts." Yet Addison's breath catches as she moves over her lips, splays one hand over the fleshy part of her waist as she settles back down, letting herself hover only a breath above Addison's space. She's committed to this, admitting it wasn't a mistake brought on by a fevered state.
"Idoreally love you, just so you know." She feels it as Addison draws in her breath; the way her lungs swell beneath the palm of her hand. "It wasn't just the…" She swallows the little bit of trepidation that rises in the back of her throat and pushes herself through the fear. Because Addison's looking at her with wide green eyes and she's falling in love all over again. "It wasn't just the cold talking. It was a little bit of the cold, but mostly me, and… I just, I do. I meant it. I don't know how else to say it, other than-"
Addison cuts her off as she arches herself slightly up; her fingers hooked around the back of Meredith's neck, tangled loosely, almost carefully, into her hair. Their lips fit together like the corner piece of a puzzle, gliding one over the other, and she all but melts into the alluring pull of Addison's tongue. The simple little sound her girlfriend makes into her mouth sends a tornado of butterflies into flight within the pit of her stomach; a feeling she's not used to and hopes doesn't ever really fade.
"I love you too." Addison's words come out as little more than a whisper, out in a rush; a secret told to her upon the summertime breeze, as though she had been afraid she would never hear them again. Meredith can feel her cheeks heat, and not from the fever this time, turning a light shade of pink hidden by the darkness of the night. She doesn't quite have a reply for that, other than to kiss her again, to say it again.
"I love you." Addison laughs, a little bit, then, a shared weight free from both of their chests and then does much the same. She says itagain.
"Oh, my love." She melts back into the pillow, a fist in Meredith's shirt, pulling her further down. Both of the blonde's arms stretch out in front of her, their noses bumping almost awkwardly as she slides on the sheets. "I love you." And it's the same, but it's a little bitdifferent, and Meredith finds herself giggling too; the tip of Addison's finger tracing her lips like they form the shape of her heart.
They find a number of ways to say it to one another that night; dissolving into a pile of giggles every few times, rolling around until they're nothing but a tangled pile of silken sheets. Neither is particularly sure how, but Meredith ends up on her back, Addison's head pillowed into the crook of her neck, gasping for air. With a silly smile on her face, Meredith tilts her head just a bit back, pressing her lips to the curve of her nose before long fingers can coax her back down. It's not a long time past, when she dips her nose into red curls, Addison's thumb and forefinger wound tight into her shirt, and she considers saying them once again.
But Addiesneezesinto the curve of her chest, and the next thought that instead crosses her mind isoh, that's how it begins. Yet Meredith hardly minds, tightening her arms around Addison's back as she digs her nose a little deeper into the side of Addison's scalp, as she'll be right there if her temperature spikes.
I love you,she conveys once more with her hands, and then again with her breath. The third time around, she once again adds her voice; feels the first warm, happy tear melt through her shirt, and the quiver of Addison's upper lip the moment before they kiss.
It was neverreallyabout the words, but the care; yet they sure seem to help.