(no subject)
Title: I Think Of...
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Mark/Addison
Summary: Doctors Without Borders.
Word Count: 7,200ish
Dedication: Happy Birthday, Gabbi.
Music: Afro Celt Sound System - I Think Of... I chose the title more for the song than the actual title words, so you should probably download it.
Note: Any parallels to ER are unfortunate and actually unintentional because I had stopped watching the show by that point. If my French and/or Swahili suck, I apologize.
**Also: Thank you, addyislove, for pointing out that there is virtually no indication as to where they are until about halfway through. This has since been fixed in an incredibly non-creative manner. Sorry about that!
Located on the West Coast of Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) was a colony of Belgium until 1960. From 1998 to 2003, the DRC and seven other African nations participated in the Second Congo War, the largest inter-state war in modern African history. The first war centered around the Hutu/Tutsi ethnic conflict in its neighboring Rwanda in 1996 and persisting emotions and hostilities from the Rwandan genocide continued to spark sporadic fighting. Laurent-Désiré Kabila, leader of the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of the Congo and self-proclaimed president of the DRC, replaced his Rwandan chief of staff with a native Congolese in 1998 and then ordered all Rwandan and Ugandan troops out of the country; the Rwandan and Ugandan governments had been large supporters of the ADFLC. Remaining ethnic and political tensions escalated and played out in the five-year war.
In 2000, the United Nations deployed the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Today, the DRC lays claim to the largest UN peacekeeping mission in the world.
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières, an international group dedicated to delivering aid to underprivileged countries whose people have suffered from armed conflicts, disasters or lack of access to appropriate health care, has been active in the DRC since 1981.
--
Addison zipped open their tent, having long given up on hope of real shelter, and slipped in after brushing her teeth, the sound of distant gunfire and grenades traveling through the trees. “I’m getting really tired of hearing those.”
“I’ve tuned them out.” Mark gave her a wry smile as she changed into her pajamas.
“I might flat out refuse if we have to relocate again,” she grumbled and tucked her head under his chin and snuggled into his arms.
Mark kissed her forehead. “I’ll pick you up and carry you.”
She smiled at him and then closed her eyes, the long day quickly sending her into sleep.
--
“I think you’ve lost your mind, that’s what I think.” She set down the chart she was working on and crossed her arms, all ears.
“Addison, you’re a doctor.”
“Yes. And you’re a selfish jackass of a manwhore. Traveling completely across the world to help people that can’t pay you and where there’s no guarantee of you getting to even do plastics is selfless and, well, not the Mark Sloan I knew three minutes ago.”
“You’re willing to pass up saving underprivileged people because you think I dropped character?”
“No. I’ve thought about it before and I’m very willing to go. But I want to know why you want to do it all of a sudden. I’m not traveling anywhere with you without knowing whether you’re doing it for the glory or for the actual principle.”
Mark rubbed a hand over his face. “It’s something new I’m trying.”
“And you want to test it out by going to a country that has absolutely no political infrastructure, no economy, and a State Department travel warning?” At his silence, Addison sighed. “Mark...”
“Here,” he handed her a sheet of paper. “I have to scrub in soon. Talk to me at the end of the day.”
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall. Shaking her head she opened her eyes and stared at the paper in front of her. As her eyes ran down the list of statistics, she took a shaky breath and nodded.
--
Addison stared at the water bottle in her hand and wiped her forehead, pushing sweat-drenched hair out of her face, her sunglasses perched on top of her head. “I can’t decide. Do I pour this over my head? Or do I drink it?” The combination of heat and humidity was nearly intolerable and had been for days.
“That depends,” Mark said as he came up to her, equally sweaty. “Is it a fresh bottle or did someone purify it and pour it in?”
“Fresh.”
“Drink it.”
She opened the cap and chugged the entire bottle almost in one go, needing a break for air halfway through. Blinking, she stared at the empty bottle and handed it to Mark. “Do something with this.”
He laughed and took it, screwed the cap back on, and tossed it across the way to a box containing other empty bottles. “You’re hot like that.”
“What? Sweaty, dehydrated and bossy?” She redid her impromptu bun in hopes of taming some uncooperative tendrils of hair.
“Yes.” Mark wished she had left her hair the way it was; it framed her face nicely and looked cute, but he understood.
Addison laughed and lightly ruffled his hair. “Go back to work.” She grinned and walked past him back to the section of the makeshift hospital they had dedicated to pregnant women and babies. The daughter of one of her patients had painted tente mére on a piece of cardboard from an empty box of medicine and a girl who frequented the hospital because she seemingly had nowhere else to go had amended it with hema mama zangu. It stayed propped up next to a pole for a while and then another girl painted mommy tent at the bottom with a stick figure drawing of a mother and child. Addison had hung it up with an odd amount of pride after that, not wanting it to get ruined. She turned around to him again before she headed back under the canopy and she smiled and blew him a kiss. She made a face as one of her hiking boots got a little stuck in the mud and she went back to work with the sound of him laughing at her fading in the humid air.
--
“Less than two percent of the roads are paved.”
Mark looked up at her. “And that’s a good reason not to go.”
“No, I’m going. I just thought you should know that less than two percent of their roads are paved.”
“So you don’t think I’ve lost my mind.”
“No, I still think you’ve lost your mind.”
“But you want to go.”
“Yes. But we’re flying business class there and back. I’m not spending a full day traveling and not...”
“Trust me; I wouldn’t let you do anything else.”
“I am not that bitchy.” Addison crossed her arms defensively.
Mark sighed and rolled his eyes. “Remember that time in Greece the summer after junior year of college when you insulted a guy’s family because you didn’t know the language and you were supposed to have the window seat and Derek had to do damage control with what he remembered from his Ancient Greek classes from when he thought about being a classical archaeologist?”
“That was one time and he was in my seat.”
He counted off on his fingers. “Seville, Heathrow, Boston, Sioux Falls oh that was a fun one.”
“Fine. I am that bitchy.”
Mark smiled. “I’ll play with tickets. You’re not too great with travel agents either.”
“I’m leaving now and going to go find out just how many shots in my ass I’m going to need.”
“Definitely a yellow fever. And I could do that for you,” he said with a smirk.
“Ha, nice try.” She smiled and walked out of his small office, but shortly stopped and poked her head back in. “And, for the record, I’ve never been to South Dakota. You made that one up.”
--
Addison propped her foot up against a rare empty bed and tightened the strings of her boot. She rolled her eyes at the mud splatters on her calves. It had rained every day for a month and a half and she had long given up on pants, willingly exchanging a few mosquito bites and mud splashes for the extra coolness. “I’m so tired of khaki,” she groaned to herself and brushed off some dried mud and, when she pushed her hair out of her face, succeeded in smudging dirt on her cheek.
“It’s not really your color. I kind of like the off-army olive green.” Mark came up behind her and gently wiped away the dirt when she turned to him. “You should switch.”
She gave him a look. “If I didn’t share a tent with you, the only way I could tell that you had changed shirts is by the mud patterns. Get some balance, Mark Sloan.”
“I could take it off.”
“You could.” She smirked widely and turned around to go check on a patient now that their solitary ultrasound machine was free.
“Is that a request?”
Addison turned and walked backwards for a few steps. “I was just agreeing with you.” She smiled and stopped at her patient’s bed and immediately went back to work.
--
Addison sat on her bed and frowned at the neat piles of clothing organized into a semicircle around her bedroom.
“Please don’t tell me that Prada has an outdoor clothing line.”
She jumped at the sound of Mark’s voice. “They don’t. I ventured into the Columbia store all by myself. I should get a prize. How did you get in?”
“I smiled at Torres.”
“Clearly her mother never taught her not to give the key to other peoples’ apartment to strangers.” Addison smiled; Callie and George were subletting Addison’s apartment while she was gone so they could move out of the hotel while looking for a place of their own. “I don’t think I even bothered to grab some of these in different colors. There are only so many shades of khaki.”
Mark laughed quietly and carefully moved a pair of shoes from a chair before sitting down. “You found all of them.”
“Indeed I did.” She sighed softly and looked up at him. “Mark, we’re friends.”
“I know.”
“Just friends. No benefits.”
He looked at her strangely and nodded. “I know.”
“Okay.”
“But, I mean, if you’re worried about getting pregnant in the jungle, we can always bring condoms.” He smirked and raised a joking eyebrow.
“Mark...” she warned, her heart hurting just a little.
He raised his hands in apology. “Bad joke, sorry.”
She doubted he knew just how bad so she let it go with a smile. “It’s okay. You wouldn’t be Mark if you didn’t backhandedly mention that you wanted have sex with me at least once a day.”
“Mention at least once a day that I want to have sex with you, or mention that I want to have sex with you at least once a day?”
“Both.”
--
It had threatened rain all day and the skies opened with a massive thunderstorm just after dinner so no one paid any attention to the increasing rumble even as the lightning died off. Addison awoke with a start as an explosion went off somewhere nearby. She shoved Mark awake and he grabbed her leg just before she peeked outside. He shook his head in disbelief at her and pulled her back toward him. He sensed her fear and tucked his arms protectively around her and, with wide eyes, they both listened to the insanity around them.
Mark heard a whistling sound all too close and rolled so Addison was underneath him and he covered his head as best he could, wincing when something ripped through the canvas of their tent and exploded only feet away.
He held still for a while, long enough for Addison to say his name out of concern and nudge him, and then rolled to the side, inhaling sharply when he moved his left arm. They shortly discovered that neither one of them could hear very well, so they communicated by hand signals. Mark decided that, except for some cuts and burns on his left arm, he was okay and Addison was fine, save for some mud (which wasn’t anything unusual). She smiled her thanks, knowing that she had been significantly closer to the explosion before he had moved her. They waited out the rest of the guerilla attack, hoping that the point was to damage as much stuff as possible rather than to damage as many people as possible. Mark slipped his right arm around her waist and held her tightly in his lap with her head buried in his shoulder until the only noises left were the rain and the sounds of doctors beginning to emerge and tend to their patients and each other.
Addison motioned for him to stay there and she stepped out to grab first aid and suture kits. She waved to the others that they were fine, a little temporarily deaf, but fine, and headed back in to take care of Mark’s arm. She glared at him and batted him away when he reached for the kit; he may have been able to suture his face, but she wasn’t going to let him try his arm. He winced at the alcohol pad and she was fairly certain she saw a few tears of pain trailing down his cheeks when she was done with it all, but she didn’t say anything beyond a whispered apology. Taping on the gauze to cover everything, she smiled at him and kissed the bandage to make the wounds feel better. Mark smiled his thanks and all but kicked her out of the tent to go check on her patients. He knew he was in no condition to even bother, one arm being almost totally immobile and the painkillers Addison had given him would put him very out of commission for a few hours, so he lay back down and tried not to be too terrified.
--
Mark looked up at the soft knock on the piece of wood holding his (glorified) tent up in the front. “Come in.”
Addison smiled softly and slipped in, quickly zipping up the canvas behind her in hopes to keep a few flies out. “I know it’s like forty million degrees out and three hundred percent humidity, but can I...?” She had to bend over, too tall for the full height of the tent. She didn’t have problems sleeping alone necessarily, but she felt that she needed a little extra human contact.
He nodded and beckoned her down to him. He decided the cot was better off being used as a shelf than a bed and had set up a fairly decent bed on the ground cloth. She sat on the edge of the cot and untied her boots, placing them upside down next to his. Mark watched her pull off her shirt and pants, leaving her in a tank top and pair of shorts, and then scooted over to make room for her.
“Why upside down?” He asked, reaching for the light.
“Spiders,” she answered nonchalantly, lumping everything undesirable that might find its way into a boot into one word.
Mark sat up and immediately flipped his boots upside down too, silencing her quiet laughter with a kiss on her forehead after he turned off the light and lay back down. “Shush.”
“You’re such a girl.”
“If I got bit by something nasty, you wouldn’t have anyone to hold you at night.”
Addison smiled and snuggled into his arms. “Oh, I think there are plenty of hot doctors willing to fill your shoes in that particular area.” She looked at him. “Plus, you know. I am a doctor. And...”
“If you finish that, we’re going to have some problems keeping that No Sex deal of yours.”
“It wasn’t mine and it wasn’t a deal.”
“The sixty days bet started it all.”
“Fine. Your imagination probably went better places anyway.”
--
Addison rubbed her face and succeeded in smudging dirt into her eye. She swore and rubbed at it, eventually removing the offending piece of dirt, and turned around at the sound of her name, happy that her hearing was quickly coming back. She headed over to the collection of doctors standing outside the mess and graciously took a granola bar from one of them. One of the grenades had fallen right next to a box of anti-malarial drugs and exploded most of their supply and it would take weeks for a new truck to get in, but if two or three went to get the drugs in one of their trucks, it would be quicker. And along the route was another camp that was in desperate need of an OB/GYN, so Addison agreed to go with the group and be dropped off and picked up on the way back.
Mark argued with her, his hearing returning as well, while she packed a bag with enough clean underwear for ten days; they had long given up on wearing anything else for less than three days. He thought he should go with her.
“Mark, you are in no shape to go anywhere. My patients are fine to stay here without me for a few days and it needs to be done. John, Matt and Michael are going with me; I’m not going to be lacking in the Big Protective Strong Man area.” Her face softened and she cupped a hand around his cheek. “This is why we’re here.”
He nodded and clasped her hand and tugged her to him in a hug. “Be careful.”
--
Thankful to be officially out of the bouncing truck after a two-day drive, Addison waved goodbye at the truck drivers, said that she’d see them in a week and trudged through a new batch of mud to see her equally new patients.
It surprised her how much trouble she had sleeping for the first three nights. The first night, she told herself it was the stress of being nearly killed, rapidly relocated and sitting in the back of a supply truck for two days. The second night, she told herself it was new sound patterns and that rock rubbing right in her lower back and the presence of a sleeping bag rather than a cot. The third night, she admitted it was the lack of Mark.
It got better when she pretended his arms were around her.
--
Mark started to worry when she wasn’t back in ten days. The supply truck wasn’t back either, which he knew meant that there was probably something wrong with them rather than Addison, but he couldn’t help but assume that something had gone wrong with her. His arm had healed enough to go back to work. He hadn’t been needed much as a surgeon - plastic or not - since they had arrived, but he still needed his left arm more than he thought. Work was his distraction and he did it as well as he could.
--
“Stop shooting at me!” Addison yelled as another grenade hit somewhere outside her tent. She curled into a defensive ball protecting her head and stayed put, hoping to wait it out again. Though she told herself she was certain that she would be okay, she still bit her lip against tears; scared that she didn’t know what was going on, annoyed that she was being a nice person and doing the right thing yet getting grenades thrown at her, insecure and feeling unsafe without Mark.
She heard the same whistling sound Mark heard right before he covered her. “Well, shit,” she groaned and tucked herself tighter into a ball. She barely heard it hit before she was knocked out.
--
Two days later, news reached him.
He panicked when he heard that the village she was helping was attacked. He panicked harder when he heard that something had happened to her. No one would tell him what and he was on his way to grab keys to one of the remaining two trucks and get her himself when someone told him that the truck would be back the next day, Addison on board. He told himself that she couldn’t be that badly hurt if she was okay enough to be transported on bumpy roads.
But he knew he would continue to panic until he saw her.
--
“Mark, I have a concussion and some cuts and bruises. I’m fine.” She hissed. “Ow, stop touching my head. Did I squeeze your arm when you got shot up?”
He caught her hand before she had a chance to grab his arm and push him away, and gently set it down her lap. “You need stitches, Addie.” He took extra care cleaning off a deep cut across her forehead. It had been cleaned already and then simply bandaged, but he didn’t want to take any chances. “Why didn’t you let someone take care of you there?”
She clenched her teeth. “People needed my help more than I needed stitches.”
“How bad of a concussion?” Mark carefully started a neat line of sutures.
“Well, I’ve had this headache...”
“And you’re still a really bitchy patient so it can’t be that bad.”
“You know, you’re hotter when you’re not talking.”
He finished and did his best not to hurt her when putting a bandage over the cut. “Yes, and you’re prettier without a battle scar on your forehead.” He did the same to her as she did to him and kissed the bandage. “There.” After he helped her down from the table, he wrapped her in his arms and held her tightly. “Thank you for coming back alive.”
--
“It’s been a week and a half, if you wake me up in the middle of the night to make sure that I’m still here, I’m killing you.”
“Hello to you, too.” Mark scooted over and made room for Addison. “Long day?”
She nodded and sat down on the edge of the bed to untie her boots before stripping off into pajamas. “Yeah. Sorry.”
He smiled and turned away out of courtesy while she changed, looking back only when she snuggled into his side and turned out the light. “You okay?”
Addison nodded and leaned her head on his chest. “As long no one shoots at me, I think I’m doing okay.” She blinked and turned to look at him. “Has it ever occurred to you how much our standards have changed in three months?”
“What? That we’re doing okay if no one shoots at us, the shirt is only dirty when you’ve worn it for a week straight, and it’s a good day if nothing bites you?”
“Yep.”
“Yes. It’s occurred to me.”
“I blame you.”
“Why?”
“This was your idea.”
“You said you’d thought about it before. And you agreed.”
“Girl Logic, Mark.”
“Fine, it’s my fault.”
--
Addison looked down for the fifth time in an hour and saw the same little girl following her around.
“What’s your name?” Addison knelt down so they were at the same level. When all she received was a confused blank stare, she tried French and hoped the country’s official language dispersed out into the middle of the jungle. “Quel est votre nom?” Still nothing.
“So far as we can figure out, her name is Molly.” Julia, the other OB/GYN and one of the doctors who had been at the site the longest, told her while waiting for a thermometer to beep on a patient a few beds over. Her thick British accent always calmed Addison. “She’s been in and out of here for a few months. No one knows where she goes. Her brother drives a supply truck in every so often, but other than that, we know nothing.”
Addison looked up at the other woman with a desperate plea on her face. “Please don’t tell me I need to learn Swahili.” Every time someone had tried to teach her she had ended up with a headache. Addison was fluent in French and Italian (and English), had conversational skills in Spanish and enough knowledge of German and Suomi (from when her parents took her to Finland when she was fourteen for, to her, no real reason) to find herself someone who spoke anything else. But outside of Europe, she was lost.
“Sorry, kiddo.” Several years older and on her second trip to the Congo, Julia had taken on a very jokingly patronizing relationship with anyone remotely younger than her. “Jina langu is my name is. I have a book in my tent; I’ll get it for you tonight.”
Molly laughed at Addison’s butchered pronunciation of the phrase and then tried out the redhead’s name and frowned; she wasn’t used to English sounds.
“Addie,” Addison suggested with a smile and then stood up and offered Molly her hand when the girl got it right. “Let’s get lunch.”
Even if she didn’t understand the words, Molly understood the meaning and eagerly followed Addison to the mess tent.
“Someone has a fan club.” Mark grinned as Addison and Molly sat down across from him.
“You’d better be part of it.” She smirked at him and took a drink from her water bottle. “This is Molly.” She pointed at him and looked at her. “That’s Mark. He’s a jerk.”
“Hey!” He lightly kicked her under the table.
“The good kind.”
“Thank you.”
--
Mark organized a birthday party for Addison. He tried to apologize for the rainstorm, but she said that they were in a jungle, she wouldn’t blame him for it and besides, there was lightning so it was okay. The gifts from the other doctors and workers took form of hugs and wishes, occasionally a new shirt or a card from those who had recently been to a real city. Mark gave her a blank book and pen that he had brought from home with her birthday in mind.
“Your journal is about to run out of pages,” he said when he gave them to her. “I thought you might want to continue.”
“Plus I keep losing pens.”
“Plus you keep losing pens.”
She bit her lip and smiled widely. “Thank you, Mark.” She looped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek and hugged him tightly. “Thank you.”
He kissed her cheek in return. “You’re welcome, Addison.”
Later that night, she kissed him when almost everyone else had gone to bed and they were the only ones left out in the rain. She slowly walked over to him and stood in front of him with a small smile. She carefully slid into his lap, one leg on either side of him, and lightly cupped his cheeks with her hands and kissed him. When she felt no resistance, she quietly slipped her tongue between his lips and smiled; she had missed kissing him, missed his taste, missed the way his hands tangled in her hair and his fingers danced down her spine. Mark pulled away first and looked at her. He certainly wouldn’t mind sleeping with Addison in a sexual manner, but they had miraculously gone three and a half months platonically without a hitch.
“I haven’t had sex in over four months, Mark,” she started to explain. “And I think I’m in love with you.”
Normally the two statements would seem incongruous to him but from her, in the middle of the Congolese jungle in a rainstorm, after they had both been injured from guerilla grenade blasts, it made perfect sense and he kissed her as he stood up and she locked her legs around his waist. Mark carried her back to their tent and set her down so he could unzip it and let them in. They had been granted two cots, as they were two people and the cots were bad enough for one person on one, and had somehow successfully tied them together and for that, Mark and Addison were quite grateful as she pulled him back onto the bed with her.
They’d had sex before (many, many times before), so there was no need for slow exploration or learning but when Addison muffled a moan as Mark’s tongue drew lazy circles around her clit, it felt like new. When she came the first time, she could tell there was something different, something good.
And when she came the second time, with him inside of her, she knew there was definitely something more.
--
“So, you and Sloan?”
“Yes, Julia. Me and Sloan.” Addison smiled her thanks at Molly and took the stethoscope the girl offered her. She had become almost like Addison’s assistant, though the language barrier hadn’t gotten much better. Addison now knew how to say “Where is my elephant?” and “Bring me...” in Swahili, while Molly was pretty good at understanding all variants of “Where did [lost article] go?” Luckily, Molly knew almost exactly where everything lost was but the elephant never became a problem.
“Your birthday?”
“Yes. Okay, lean forward please.”
“Hold that and lift your arm up, thank you.” Julia put labels on the vials of blood she just drew. “Great. I win.” She taped some gauze on the inside of her patient’s arm.
Addison stopped what she was doing. “You guys were betting on that?”
“Of course. It was only a matter of time, why shouldn’t we?” She shooed away a fly and guided her patient to lie down and turned on the ultrasound machine. “Découvrons si votre bébé est garçon ou la fille.” She switched into French for the benefit the woman and warned her about the cold jelly.
“Personally,” Addison smiled and waited her turn with the machine, “I wouldn’t mind the cold jelly in this weather.”
“Aren’t you going to ask what I won?” Julia smiled and turned the monitor toward the mother and pointed. “C'est un garçon. Félicitations.” She waited a few moments while the woman smiled and touched her baby on the screen before pushing it over to Addison.
Addison’s patient motioned that an impatiently bored-looking Molly could do the jelly honors and Addison handed her the tube while she got everything else set up. “Power Bars. Asante.” She took the tube back from Molly, capped it, and checked on her patient’s baby girl.
“For that, I’m not telling you.”
“What was wrong with Power Bars?” She stopped. “Hang on a minute. Jules?” She pointed at the screen and then at the small (and, to Addison, extremely primitive) fetal monitor, which was beeping like crazy.
“Looks like you get to perform surgery in the middle of the jungle.”
“Have you ever done it?” She started explaining to her patient what was about to happen and why and tried to calm her down as best she could. Addison had done emergency C-sections an uncountable number of times, but always in a sterile and clean OR. It wasn’t the procedure she was worried about: it was the cleanliness and then the survival of the baby outside of her mother and without a protective incubator as a shield against her underdeveloped immune system.
“Yes. Call your boyfriend over, it’s going to take more than the two of us to get this to work.”
Addison decided that it was not the correct time to correct the other woman on the status of her relationship with Mark and shouted for him. “Mark!” She waited until he turned around. “Wanna do some surgery?” She grinned, knowing that he hadn’t had much of an opportunity for his passion, unless stitching up her forehead and doing the same to a few others counted. It wasn’t plastics, but it was something.
“Hell yes,” he said once he had jogged over.
“Even if it’s pink and squishy?” She started grabbing sealed, single-use surgical tools from the supply drawers while he moved their patient out of sight of the others and to the cleanest area possible.
“Yes.”
--
“Stop playing hero, Mark!” Addison angrily grabbed his pack out of his hands and dropped it next to her feet. “You’re a doctor, not a survivalist or a soldier. Let other people go after them.”
Mark clenched his teeth and took a deep breath. Three fellow doctors plus two site workers had gone off into the jungle a week earlier to attend to a tiny nearby village suffering a malaria outbreak; a messenger had run into their camp with the desperate plea. They were supposed to be back in four days and while there was always wiggle room due to unreliable roads and rain, an extra three days was pushing it - especially when there had been reports of guerilla activity in the area. As one of the bigger and stronger men there, Mark had volunteered to go with a small group to find their missing doctors. Addison wasn’t having anything to do with it.
“Addison. They’re our friends. It will take days to get a message to the embassies of these guys and even longer to get moving on finding them. Chances are, they’re going to need doctors.” He stepped toward her and took her face in his hands. “I don’t want to leave you. But Mike, Nicolai and Allie? They need me. Okay?”
She nodded and a tear dropped down her cheek as she remembered what happened the last time they were separated and the logic she used to let him let her go. “Okay.”
“I love you,” he said firmly and honestly. “I’ll be back. I promise.”
“Mark...” she had a feeling that promises didn’t mean a whole lot when it meant venturing into the jungle with nothing but a vague idea of a destination.
“Addison. I promise.” Mark kissed her softly but sincerely and then smiled at her before grabbing his pack and running off.
Despite the heat, Addison shivered and hugged herself. She jumped, startled when she felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Where the hell did you find him?” Julia’s voice immediately calmed her.
She sighed and gently bit her lip. “I don’t know.”
“He’ll be back. Guys that good always come back.” She patted Addison’s shoulder. “Now, come on, you have people that need your help.”
Addison watched the retreating group for a bit longer before nodding resolutely and turning back around to her patients.
--
“Hasn’t their war been over for like four years?” Addison groaned, mostly to herself, at the news on the single radio station they received.
Julia smiled. “There’s a difference between politically officially over and socially officially over, love. Mark will be fine, stop worrying.”
Addison sighed heavily and absently pushed her dinner around her plate. “I know. But that’s like telling me not to look down.” She looked up. “I’m having trouble sleeping.”
At that, Julia laughed. “My husband and I stopped sleeping together on a regular basis for that reason a month or two before we left.”
“Where is he?” Addison had noticed the ring on the woman’s finger but never asked about it in case of bad memories or loss.
“Sudan. Getting horrifically sunburned. Bloody moron doesn’t know how to use sunscreen.”
“How do you do it? So apart for so long, not even being able to call each other regularly. I mean, it’s not geographically far, but it’s not like you really want to try.”
She smiled softly. “Never underestimate the power of a good love letter. Try tea, Addie, it should help.”
“Tea is hot.” Addison felt like an idiot for mentioning something so obvious, but she was convinced she saw water start to bubble just sitting in the sun earlier that day.
“Then wait for it to cool off.” Julia looked seriously at the redhead. “Or you could just admit to yourself that you love him. That might help, too.”
--
After an hour and convinced that he was going to run his watch out of battery by pushing the indiglo button every twelve seconds, Mark gave up and pulled the pillow out from under his head. He rolled onto his side.
And then onto his stomach.
And then onto his other side.
And returned to lying on his back.
He found himself clutching the useless pillow to him and, despite his frustration, smiled with an idea. He turned onto his side again and curled around the pillow. It was too small and didn’t smell like her, but it was good enough.
--
They all lined up to greet the truck of rescued doctors and workers. No one knew who was hurt or how badly and no one knew if everyone came back; three weeks was an awfully long time to be missing without contact. Molly grabbed Addison’s hand and held it tightly. She knew how much Addison cared about Mark even if Addison didn’t and knew the redhead needed a little comfort. Addison smiled down at the girl and squeezed her hand in return. She nearly cried when Mark hopped off the truck, visibly okay. She held back and let him help the others down and she idly catalogued the injuries of everyone else; the worst appearing to be a tie for a broken leg and a head laceration. News quickly circulated that several bridges had been destroyed and they had to take the long way home, nothing serious.
Molly let go of Addison’s hand and gently pushed her in Mark’s direction before disappearing to greet her brother as he jumped out of the driver’s cab. Addison smiled at Mark and slowly walked toward him.
“I love you,” she said quietly, encircling her arms around his back and holding him to her as tightly as he was holding her to him.
He smiled into her hair and inhaled deeply, the memory of how she smelled and felt in his arms had gotten him through more than a few sleepless nights. “When we’re back home, and when people aren’t throwing grenades or shooting at us, and when we aren’t up to our knees in mud, and when we have cell phones so if we’re gone for three weeks we can tell each other we’re okay...will you marry me?”
Addison nodded and lifted her head from his shoulder, oblivious to the semi-organized chaos around them. “Yes,” she smiled widely and kissed him softly.
--
Mark caught Addison around her waist and pulled her into a quick hug. “You look sad.”
“Molly disappeared again.” She wrinkled her nose. Though she knew the girl would be back, she still missed her.
“Oh, you’re only annoyed because there’s no one to step and fetch for you.” The moment he said it, Mark regretted it.
Addison pulled away from him and crossed her arms and cocked an eyebrow. “Is that your hand I see raised, Mark Sloan? Because, really, all I’ve seen you do all day is band-aids.”
He brushed his finger over her forehead, the cut still noticeable but healing nicely and on its way to not scarring. “I think my band-aids saved you a fairly decent scar.”
“That was going to be such a good story. ‘How’d you get that scar?’ ‘Oh, I was in the Congo and a rebel fighter blew up my tent.’” She pouted with a smile and kissed him quickly. “Fine. I won’t make you my slave. At least not today.”
--
“I’m pregnant,” she told him one extraordinarily hot day while they were unloading supplies. “Theoretically I shouldn’t be, but I am.” Addison paused to roll up the sleeves of her shirt, tucking them up by her shoulders, the light long-sleeved shirt long gone. She would’ve waited to adjust her clothing and allowed the moment its proper happy sincerity, but the heat and sweat was too much. As long as she wasn’t stripping into just her bra, she figured it wasn’t too bad.
He decided he’d ask about the ‘theoretically’ later and accepted the box of measles vaccines she handed him. “You’re pregnant?” He smiled, though couldn’t help making the moment a little more cutely awkward by wiping sweat out of his eyes.
She nodded, a smile gracing her face when she saw his reaction. “Yeah. I’m pregnant.” Addison looked up at a shout of her name and gave Mark an apologetic smile and a kiss on his cheek and sprinted off to take care of a patient who had just gone into labor.
Mark slipped his hand under her shirt later that night while they sat around a small fire, lightly resting his fingers on the soft skin of her stomach. They were the only ones still up.
“Little lower,” Addison whispered and caught his hand in hers, moving it down a bit. “There.”
He brushed her hair off to one side and kissed her neck. “I love you.” Mark’s lips touched the soft spot behind her ear and Addison dropped her head back on his chest and sighed, turning her head just right to give him better access. As Mark dipped his tongue into the hollow of her collarbone and blew a soft breath of cool air onto the wet skin to make her shiver, Addison’s eyes fluttered shut and her breathing began to get heavier. And suddenly Mark’s lips were on hers, kissing her softly and gradually deeper until they were breathing too hard and had to break away. Addison smiled at him and slowly detangled herself from his arms and legs and stood up to offer him her hand and led him to their tent.
Once inside, their lips immediately locked on each other again and their tongues swirled in excitement. Mark broke away first and tugged lightly on the hem of her shirt and pulled it slowly over her head.
“God, you’re beautiful.” He kissed her smile and let her slowly unbutton his shirt, resting his forehead on hers.
“I love you,” she whispered and pushed his shirt to the floor and pulled him toward her for a kiss. She felt his soft hands on her hips trail up her sides to cup her cheeks as he walked them the short distance to their bed. The low height of their tent made certain parts of foreplay a bit awkward and they had abandoned them in a fit of laughter one night after Addison hit her head on the hanging light and knocked it off its hook. She wiggled her hips to help him slide her pants away.
Soon, they were both naked and Mark was tracing Addison’s every curve with his fingers and following with kisses. He was trailing dangerously close to her center and pouted at her when she hooked her legs around his back and urged him up to her. He liked teasing her with his fingers and tongue, and knew she liked it too, so looked at her with a question on his face.
“I just want you,” she smiled at him quietly and kissed him.
He understood and smiled back as he slipped into her and swallowed her gasp. Sex was always longer and more tender when she hadn’t already come, their connection was stronger and sweeter, and the lovemaking was more intense. He moved slowly in a practiced and loving dance and she moved under him in tandem. Mark whispered beautiful things in her ear as he felt them get close. He could tell she wasn’t going to make it on her own so slowly trailed his fingers of the hand that wasn’t cupped around her cheek down between them and was rewarded by a soft moan and a thankful smile when he gently circled her clit.
“Oh, God, Mark,” Addison whispered and arched her back and neck, her mouth open and eyes closed in pleasure. Mark kissed her exposed neck and she pulled his head up to kiss him as she rode the waves of ecstasy he was giving her and again when he came inside of her.
“Addison,” he breathed against her lips, unable to keep the connection as his orgasm hit. He held steady for a few minutes, his eyes locked on hers, and then rolled off of her with a smile. His arms immediately circled around her as she nestled her head on his chest and they cuddled in silence for a while with Mark occasionally kissing her temple or cheek and Addison drawing on his skin. “What did you mean by ‘theoretically’?” He asked softly.
“Does it matter?” She propped her head up and looked at him with a smile on her face and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. Cupping his cheek, she leaned down and kissed him softly and laughed to herself as the piece of hair fell down into her face again.
Mark recognized the look behind the smile and let it go, shaking his head. “No.” He kissed her cheek as she settled into him again. “Despite your best efforts, you got pregnant in the jungle anyway.”
“Shut up.”
--
“Fifteen two, fifteen four, fifteen six, fifteen eight. A double run for eight is sixteen and the right jack is seventeen.” Addison grinned and moved her peg seventeen spots and tried not to laugh while one of the site staffers counted a meager six points and had nothing in his crib.
“What’s your story?” Julia sat down next to Mark one night and watched the cribbage game with him.
“Hm?” Mark turned and looked at the older woman and took a drink of his beer.
“You and Addison. You came together but not as a couple, and now you’re engaged and she’s pregnant. What’s your story?”
Mark smiled at the sound of Addison’s laughter as she easily skunked her opponent to win three games in a row. “I’ve been in love with her for nearly fourteen years.”
“That’s a hell of a long time to wait.”
“She was married for eleven of those.”
“Even more of a hell of a long time to wait.”
“Her ex-husband was my best friend.”
Julia smiled at him. “You’re not giving me any more dirt, are you?”
“I could tell you that it’s complicated.”
“And he wouldn’t be lying.” Addison smirked and slid in next to Mark. “Jules, are you harassing my fiancée again?”
“Yes,” the two answered in unison, though with opposite looks on their faces.
Having overheard part of their conversation, she knew exactly what the older woman wanted to know. “Well,” she took a drink from her water bottle. “I cheated on my husband with him; he cheated on me with a nurse. I went back to my husband, he cheated on me with an intern. I called Mark in a drunken need for sex so he flew out to Seattle and ended up staying, though God knows why.” She rolled her eyes and shook her head, still unsure why he stayed. “Husband and I get divorced, Mark and I have a lot of sex. For some reason, I cut off sex and we made a deal that if we could go sixty days without sex, we’d try the couple thing again. I cheated on that deal with an intern but Mark lied and said he broke the deal so I wouldn’t feel bad about it, insert a few months of successful friendship, a botched trip to LA, just sex with the intern, and Mark being a manwhore and he suggested this.” She grinned at Julia, who was busy trying to figure out all the cheating and sex, and then looked at Mark. “That about it?”
Mark thought for a second and appreciated Addison’s discretion on the abortion page of their history. “Yep.”
“This is the second time in my life I’ve heard a story that officially qualifies as ‘it’s complicated.’ Congratulations.” She smiled goodnight at the two and then left them alone.
Mark slipped his arm around Addison’s shoulder and pulled her toward him, kissing her head when she leaned it on his shoulder. “You summed that up pretty good.”
Addison laughed. “Yeah, I thought so.”
“How are you feeling?” He knew she spent most of the morning either throwing up or trying not to.
She smiled. “Better. Thanks.” She instinctively laid her hand on her stomach. Their child wasn’t nearly big enough to kick yet, or for them to even know sex, but she could tell.
Mark dropped his arm from her shoulder so his hand could cover hers. “You’re pretty amazing you know.”
“I am?”
“You let me drag you into the middle of the jungle where it rains all the time -”
“I’m kinda used to that.”
“And where people regularly shoot at us for no reason. You get shot at, twice, get injured and don’t bat an eye. You perform surgery out here, learn Swahili so you can teach this kid that follows you around what you’re doing, you don’t complain that much about the bugs. And you fell in love with me.”
“And agreed to marry you and then got pregnant.” She turned and smiled at him.
“That too.”
Addison kissed him softly. “Thank you.”
--
“Ready to do this?” Mark took Addison’s hand as they walked toward their gate at the Kinshasa airport to start their flight home.
She swallowed and nodded. Excited to go home, for real showers and real beds and real ORs and friends she hadn’t seen in six months, she was also sad to leave. “Yeah. Let’s get on a plane to Douala, to Brussels, to Chicago, to Seattle.” She smirked, tangentially annoyed that she’d have to figure out how to sleep through most of it on her own: the sleeping medication she had wasn’t supposed to be used by pregnant women.
“Only if I can sleep in your bed when we get back. The hotel bed really isn’t all that great.”
“No, yours really sucked.”
“I could move in with you,” he suggested as he handed the gate agent his ticket, passport and about twelve other pieces of paper.
“You could.” She smiled at the agent as he checked hers. “And you probably should.”
“Since we’re getting married and having a baby and all that.”
“Exactly.”
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Mark/Addison
Summary: Doctors Without Borders.
Word Count: 7,200ish
Dedication: Happy Birthday, Gabbi.
Music: Afro Celt Sound System - I Think Of... I chose the title more for the song than the actual title words, so you should probably download it.
Note: Any parallels to ER are unfortunate and actually unintentional because I had stopped watching the show by that point. If my French and/or Swahili suck, I apologize.
**Also: Thank you, addyislove, for pointing out that there is virtually no indication as to where they are until about halfway through. This has since been fixed in an incredibly non-creative manner. Sorry about that!
Located on the West Coast of Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) was a colony of Belgium until 1960. From 1998 to 2003, the DRC and seven other African nations participated in the Second Congo War, the largest inter-state war in modern African history. The first war centered around the Hutu/Tutsi ethnic conflict in its neighboring Rwanda in 1996 and persisting emotions and hostilities from the Rwandan genocide continued to spark sporadic fighting. Laurent-Désiré Kabila, leader of the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of the Congo and self-proclaimed president of the DRC, replaced his Rwandan chief of staff with a native Congolese in 1998 and then ordered all Rwandan and Ugandan troops out of the country; the Rwandan and Ugandan governments had been large supporters of the ADFLC. Remaining ethnic and political tensions escalated and played out in the five-year war.
In 2000, the United Nations deployed the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Today, the DRC lays claim to the largest UN peacekeeping mission in the world.
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières, an international group dedicated to delivering aid to underprivileged countries whose people have suffered from armed conflicts, disasters or lack of access to appropriate health care, has been active in the DRC since 1981.
--
Addison zipped open their tent, having long given up on hope of real shelter, and slipped in after brushing her teeth, the sound of distant gunfire and grenades traveling through the trees. “I’m getting really tired of hearing those.”
“I’ve tuned them out.” Mark gave her a wry smile as she changed into her pajamas.
“I might flat out refuse if we have to relocate again,” she grumbled and tucked her head under his chin and snuggled into his arms.
Mark kissed her forehead. “I’ll pick you up and carry you.”
She smiled at him and then closed her eyes, the long day quickly sending her into sleep.
--
“I think you’ve lost your mind, that’s what I think.” She set down the chart she was working on and crossed her arms, all ears.
“Addison, you’re a doctor.”
“Yes. And you’re a selfish jackass of a manwhore. Traveling completely across the world to help people that can’t pay you and where there’s no guarantee of you getting to even do plastics is selfless and, well, not the Mark Sloan I knew three minutes ago.”
“You’re willing to pass up saving underprivileged people because you think I dropped character?”
“No. I’ve thought about it before and I’m very willing to go. But I want to know why you want to do it all of a sudden. I’m not traveling anywhere with you without knowing whether you’re doing it for the glory or for the actual principle.”
Mark rubbed a hand over his face. “It’s something new I’m trying.”
“And you want to test it out by going to a country that has absolutely no political infrastructure, no economy, and a State Department travel warning?” At his silence, Addison sighed. “Mark...”
“Here,” he handed her a sheet of paper. “I have to scrub in soon. Talk to me at the end of the day.”
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall. Shaking her head she opened her eyes and stared at the paper in front of her. As her eyes ran down the list of statistics, she took a shaky breath and nodded.
--
Addison stared at the water bottle in her hand and wiped her forehead, pushing sweat-drenched hair out of her face, her sunglasses perched on top of her head. “I can’t decide. Do I pour this over my head? Or do I drink it?” The combination of heat and humidity was nearly intolerable and had been for days.
“That depends,” Mark said as he came up to her, equally sweaty. “Is it a fresh bottle or did someone purify it and pour it in?”
“Fresh.”
“Drink it.”
She opened the cap and chugged the entire bottle almost in one go, needing a break for air halfway through. Blinking, she stared at the empty bottle and handed it to Mark. “Do something with this.”
He laughed and took it, screwed the cap back on, and tossed it across the way to a box containing other empty bottles. “You’re hot like that.”
“What? Sweaty, dehydrated and bossy?” She redid her impromptu bun in hopes of taming some uncooperative tendrils of hair.
“Yes.” Mark wished she had left her hair the way it was; it framed her face nicely and looked cute, but he understood.
Addison laughed and lightly ruffled his hair. “Go back to work.” She grinned and walked past him back to the section of the makeshift hospital they had dedicated to pregnant women and babies. The daughter of one of her patients had painted tente mére on a piece of cardboard from an empty box of medicine and a girl who frequented the hospital because she seemingly had nowhere else to go had amended it with hema mama zangu. It stayed propped up next to a pole for a while and then another girl painted mommy tent at the bottom with a stick figure drawing of a mother and child. Addison had hung it up with an odd amount of pride after that, not wanting it to get ruined. She turned around to him again before she headed back under the canopy and she smiled and blew him a kiss. She made a face as one of her hiking boots got a little stuck in the mud and she went back to work with the sound of him laughing at her fading in the humid air.
--
“Less than two percent of the roads are paved.”
Mark looked up at her. “And that’s a good reason not to go.”
“No, I’m going. I just thought you should know that less than two percent of their roads are paved.”
“So you don’t think I’ve lost my mind.”
“No, I still think you’ve lost your mind.”
“But you want to go.”
“Yes. But we’re flying business class there and back. I’m not spending a full day traveling and not...”
“Trust me; I wouldn’t let you do anything else.”
“I am not that bitchy.” Addison crossed her arms defensively.
Mark sighed and rolled his eyes. “Remember that time in Greece the summer after junior year of college when you insulted a guy’s family because you didn’t know the language and you were supposed to have the window seat and Derek had to do damage control with what he remembered from his Ancient Greek classes from when he thought about being a classical archaeologist?”
“That was one time and he was in my seat.”
He counted off on his fingers. “Seville, Heathrow, Boston, Sioux Falls oh that was a fun one.”
“Fine. I am that bitchy.”
Mark smiled. “I’ll play with tickets. You’re not too great with travel agents either.”
“I’m leaving now and going to go find out just how many shots in my ass I’m going to need.”
“Definitely a yellow fever. And I could do that for you,” he said with a smirk.
“Ha, nice try.” She smiled and walked out of his small office, but shortly stopped and poked her head back in. “And, for the record, I’ve never been to South Dakota. You made that one up.”
--
Addison propped her foot up against a rare empty bed and tightened the strings of her boot. She rolled her eyes at the mud splatters on her calves. It had rained every day for a month and a half and she had long given up on pants, willingly exchanging a few mosquito bites and mud splashes for the extra coolness. “I’m so tired of khaki,” she groaned to herself and brushed off some dried mud and, when she pushed her hair out of her face, succeeded in smudging dirt on her cheek.
“It’s not really your color. I kind of like the off-army olive green.” Mark came up behind her and gently wiped away the dirt when she turned to him. “You should switch.”
She gave him a look. “If I didn’t share a tent with you, the only way I could tell that you had changed shirts is by the mud patterns. Get some balance, Mark Sloan.”
“I could take it off.”
“You could.” She smirked widely and turned around to go check on a patient now that their solitary ultrasound machine was free.
“Is that a request?”
Addison turned and walked backwards for a few steps. “I was just agreeing with you.” She smiled and stopped at her patient’s bed and immediately went back to work.
--
Addison sat on her bed and frowned at the neat piles of clothing organized into a semicircle around her bedroom.
“Please don’t tell me that Prada has an outdoor clothing line.”
She jumped at the sound of Mark’s voice. “They don’t. I ventured into the Columbia store all by myself. I should get a prize. How did you get in?”
“I smiled at Torres.”
“Clearly her mother never taught her not to give the key to other peoples’ apartment to strangers.” Addison smiled; Callie and George were subletting Addison’s apartment while she was gone so they could move out of the hotel while looking for a place of their own. “I don’t think I even bothered to grab some of these in different colors. There are only so many shades of khaki.”
Mark laughed quietly and carefully moved a pair of shoes from a chair before sitting down. “You found all of them.”
“Indeed I did.” She sighed softly and looked up at him. “Mark, we’re friends.”
“I know.”
“Just friends. No benefits.”
He looked at her strangely and nodded. “I know.”
“Okay.”
“But, I mean, if you’re worried about getting pregnant in the jungle, we can always bring condoms.” He smirked and raised a joking eyebrow.
“Mark...” she warned, her heart hurting just a little.
He raised his hands in apology. “Bad joke, sorry.”
She doubted he knew just how bad so she let it go with a smile. “It’s okay. You wouldn’t be Mark if you didn’t backhandedly mention that you wanted have sex with me at least once a day.”
“Mention at least once a day that I want to have sex with you, or mention that I want to have sex with you at least once a day?”
“Both.”
--
It had threatened rain all day and the skies opened with a massive thunderstorm just after dinner so no one paid any attention to the increasing rumble even as the lightning died off. Addison awoke with a start as an explosion went off somewhere nearby. She shoved Mark awake and he grabbed her leg just before she peeked outside. He shook his head in disbelief at her and pulled her back toward him. He sensed her fear and tucked his arms protectively around her and, with wide eyes, they both listened to the insanity around them.
Mark heard a whistling sound all too close and rolled so Addison was underneath him and he covered his head as best he could, wincing when something ripped through the canvas of their tent and exploded only feet away.
He held still for a while, long enough for Addison to say his name out of concern and nudge him, and then rolled to the side, inhaling sharply when he moved his left arm. They shortly discovered that neither one of them could hear very well, so they communicated by hand signals. Mark decided that, except for some cuts and burns on his left arm, he was okay and Addison was fine, save for some mud (which wasn’t anything unusual). She smiled her thanks, knowing that she had been significantly closer to the explosion before he had moved her. They waited out the rest of the guerilla attack, hoping that the point was to damage as much stuff as possible rather than to damage as many people as possible. Mark slipped his right arm around her waist and held her tightly in his lap with her head buried in his shoulder until the only noises left were the rain and the sounds of doctors beginning to emerge and tend to their patients and each other.
Addison motioned for him to stay there and she stepped out to grab first aid and suture kits. She waved to the others that they were fine, a little temporarily deaf, but fine, and headed back in to take care of Mark’s arm. She glared at him and batted him away when he reached for the kit; he may have been able to suture his face, but she wasn’t going to let him try his arm. He winced at the alcohol pad and she was fairly certain she saw a few tears of pain trailing down his cheeks when she was done with it all, but she didn’t say anything beyond a whispered apology. Taping on the gauze to cover everything, she smiled at him and kissed the bandage to make the wounds feel better. Mark smiled his thanks and all but kicked her out of the tent to go check on her patients. He knew he was in no condition to even bother, one arm being almost totally immobile and the painkillers Addison had given him would put him very out of commission for a few hours, so he lay back down and tried not to be too terrified.
--
Mark looked up at the soft knock on the piece of wood holding his (glorified) tent up in the front. “Come in.”
Addison smiled softly and slipped in, quickly zipping up the canvas behind her in hopes to keep a few flies out. “I know it’s like forty million degrees out and three hundred percent humidity, but can I...?” She had to bend over, too tall for the full height of the tent. She didn’t have problems sleeping alone necessarily, but she felt that she needed a little extra human contact.
He nodded and beckoned her down to him. He decided the cot was better off being used as a shelf than a bed and had set up a fairly decent bed on the ground cloth. She sat on the edge of the cot and untied her boots, placing them upside down next to his. Mark watched her pull off her shirt and pants, leaving her in a tank top and pair of shorts, and then scooted over to make room for her.
“Why upside down?” He asked, reaching for the light.
“Spiders,” she answered nonchalantly, lumping everything undesirable that might find its way into a boot into one word.
Mark sat up and immediately flipped his boots upside down too, silencing her quiet laughter with a kiss on her forehead after he turned off the light and lay back down. “Shush.”
“You’re such a girl.”
“If I got bit by something nasty, you wouldn’t have anyone to hold you at night.”
Addison smiled and snuggled into his arms. “Oh, I think there are plenty of hot doctors willing to fill your shoes in that particular area.” She looked at him. “Plus, you know. I am a doctor. And...”
“If you finish that, we’re going to have some problems keeping that No Sex deal of yours.”
“It wasn’t mine and it wasn’t a deal.”
“The sixty days bet started it all.”
“Fine. Your imagination probably went better places anyway.”
--
Addison rubbed her face and succeeded in smudging dirt into her eye. She swore and rubbed at it, eventually removing the offending piece of dirt, and turned around at the sound of her name, happy that her hearing was quickly coming back. She headed over to the collection of doctors standing outside the mess and graciously took a granola bar from one of them. One of the grenades had fallen right next to a box of anti-malarial drugs and exploded most of their supply and it would take weeks for a new truck to get in, but if two or three went to get the drugs in one of their trucks, it would be quicker. And along the route was another camp that was in desperate need of an OB/GYN, so Addison agreed to go with the group and be dropped off and picked up on the way back.
Mark argued with her, his hearing returning as well, while she packed a bag with enough clean underwear for ten days; they had long given up on wearing anything else for less than three days. He thought he should go with her.
“Mark, you are in no shape to go anywhere. My patients are fine to stay here without me for a few days and it needs to be done. John, Matt and Michael are going with me; I’m not going to be lacking in the Big Protective Strong Man area.” Her face softened and she cupped a hand around his cheek. “This is why we’re here.”
He nodded and clasped her hand and tugged her to him in a hug. “Be careful.”
--
Thankful to be officially out of the bouncing truck after a two-day drive, Addison waved goodbye at the truck drivers, said that she’d see them in a week and trudged through a new batch of mud to see her equally new patients.
It surprised her how much trouble she had sleeping for the first three nights. The first night, she told herself it was the stress of being nearly killed, rapidly relocated and sitting in the back of a supply truck for two days. The second night, she told herself it was new sound patterns and that rock rubbing right in her lower back and the presence of a sleeping bag rather than a cot. The third night, she admitted it was the lack of Mark.
It got better when she pretended his arms were around her.
--
Mark started to worry when she wasn’t back in ten days. The supply truck wasn’t back either, which he knew meant that there was probably something wrong with them rather than Addison, but he couldn’t help but assume that something had gone wrong with her. His arm had healed enough to go back to work. He hadn’t been needed much as a surgeon - plastic or not - since they had arrived, but he still needed his left arm more than he thought. Work was his distraction and he did it as well as he could.
--
“Stop shooting at me!” Addison yelled as another grenade hit somewhere outside her tent. She curled into a defensive ball protecting her head and stayed put, hoping to wait it out again. Though she told herself she was certain that she would be okay, she still bit her lip against tears; scared that she didn’t know what was going on, annoyed that she was being a nice person and doing the right thing yet getting grenades thrown at her, insecure and feeling unsafe without Mark.
She heard the same whistling sound Mark heard right before he covered her. “Well, shit,” she groaned and tucked herself tighter into a ball. She barely heard it hit before she was knocked out.
--
Two days later, news reached him.
He panicked when he heard that the village she was helping was attacked. He panicked harder when he heard that something had happened to her. No one would tell him what and he was on his way to grab keys to one of the remaining two trucks and get her himself when someone told him that the truck would be back the next day, Addison on board. He told himself that she couldn’t be that badly hurt if she was okay enough to be transported on bumpy roads.
But he knew he would continue to panic until he saw her.
--
“Mark, I have a concussion and some cuts and bruises. I’m fine.” She hissed. “Ow, stop touching my head. Did I squeeze your arm when you got shot up?”
He caught her hand before she had a chance to grab his arm and push him away, and gently set it down her lap. “You need stitches, Addie.” He took extra care cleaning off a deep cut across her forehead. It had been cleaned already and then simply bandaged, but he didn’t want to take any chances. “Why didn’t you let someone take care of you there?”
She clenched her teeth. “People needed my help more than I needed stitches.”
“How bad of a concussion?” Mark carefully started a neat line of sutures.
“Well, I’ve had this headache...”
“And you’re still a really bitchy patient so it can’t be that bad.”
“You know, you’re hotter when you’re not talking.”
He finished and did his best not to hurt her when putting a bandage over the cut. “Yes, and you’re prettier without a battle scar on your forehead.” He did the same to her as she did to him and kissed the bandage. “There.” After he helped her down from the table, he wrapped her in his arms and held her tightly. “Thank you for coming back alive.”
--
“It’s been a week and a half, if you wake me up in the middle of the night to make sure that I’m still here, I’m killing you.”
“Hello to you, too.” Mark scooted over and made room for Addison. “Long day?”
She nodded and sat down on the edge of the bed to untie her boots before stripping off into pajamas. “Yeah. Sorry.”
He smiled and turned away out of courtesy while she changed, looking back only when she snuggled into his side and turned out the light. “You okay?”
Addison nodded and leaned her head on his chest. “As long no one shoots at me, I think I’m doing okay.” She blinked and turned to look at him. “Has it ever occurred to you how much our standards have changed in three months?”
“What? That we’re doing okay if no one shoots at us, the shirt is only dirty when you’ve worn it for a week straight, and it’s a good day if nothing bites you?”
“Yep.”
“Yes. It’s occurred to me.”
“I blame you.”
“Why?”
“This was your idea.”
“You said you’d thought about it before. And you agreed.”
“Girl Logic, Mark.”
“Fine, it’s my fault.”
--
Addison looked down for the fifth time in an hour and saw the same little girl following her around.
“What’s your name?” Addison knelt down so they were at the same level. When all she received was a confused blank stare, she tried French and hoped the country’s official language dispersed out into the middle of the jungle. “Quel est votre nom?” Still nothing.
“So far as we can figure out, her name is Molly.” Julia, the other OB/GYN and one of the doctors who had been at the site the longest, told her while waiting for a thermometer to beep on a patient a few beds over. Her thick British accent always calmed Addison. “She’s been in and out of here for a few months. No one knows where she goes. Her brother drives a supply truck in every so often, but other than that, we know nothing.”
Addison looked up at the other woman with a desperate plea on her face. “Please don’t tell me I need to learn Swahili.” Every time someone had tried to teach her she had ended up with a headache. Addison was fluent in French and Italian (and English), had conversational skills in Spanish and enough knowledge of German and Suomi (from when her parents took her to Finland when she was fourteen for, to her, no real reason) to find herself someone who spoke anything else. But outside of Europe, she was lost.
“Sorry, kiddo.” Several years older and on her second trip to the Congo, Julia had taken on a very jokingly patronizing relationship with anyone remotely younger than her. “Jina langu is my name is. I have a book in my tent; I’ll get it for you tonight.”
Molly laughed at Addison’s butchered pronunciation of the phrase and then tried out the redhead’s name and frowned; she wasn’t used to English sounds.
“Addie,” Addison suggested with a smile and then stood up and offered Molly her hand when the girl got it right. “Let’s get lunch.”
Even if she didn’t understand the words, Molly understood the meaning and eagerly followed Addison to the mess tent.
“Someone has a fan club.” Mark grinned as Addison and Molly sat down across from him.
“You’d better be part of it.” She smirked at him and took a drink from her water bottle. “This is Molly.” She pointed at him and looked at her. “That’s Mark. He’s a jerk.”
“Hey!” He lightly kicked her under the table.
“The good kind.”
“Thank you.”
--
Mark organized a birthday party for Addison. He tried to apologize for the rainstorm, but she said that they were in a jungle, she wouldn’t blame him for it and besides, there was lightning so it was okay. The gifts from the other doctors and workers took form of hugs and wishes, occasionally a new shirt or a card from those who had recently been to a real city. Mark gave her a blank book and pen that he had brought from home with her birthday in mind.
“Your journal is about to run out of pages,” he said when he gave them to her. “I thought you might want to continue.”
“Plus I keep losing pens.”
“Plus you keep losing pens.”
She bit her lip and smiled widely. “Thank you, Mark.” She looped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek and hugged him tightly. “Thank you.”
He kissed her cheek in return. “You’re welcome, Addison.”
Later that night, she kissed him when almost everyone else had gone to bed and they were the only ones left out in the rain. She slowly walked over to him and stood in front of him with a small smile. She carefully slid into his lap, one leg on either side of him, and lightly cupped his cheeks with her hands and kissed him. When she felt no resistance, she quietly slipped her tongue between his lips and smiled; she had missed kissing him, missed his taste, missed the way his hands tangled in her hair and his fingers danced down her spine. Mark pulled away first and looked at her. He certainly wouldn’t mind sleeping with Addison in a sexual manner, but they had miraculously gone three and a half months platonically without a hitch.
“I haven’t had sex in over four months, Mark,” she started to explain. “And I think I’m in love with you.”
Normally the two statements would seem incongruous to him but from her, in the middle of the Congolese jungle in a rainstorm, after they had both been injured from guerilla grenade blasts, it made perfect sense and he kissed her as he stood up and she locked her legs around his waist. Mark carried her back to their tent and set her down so he could unzip it and let them in. They had been granted two cots, as they were two people and the cots were bad enough for one person on one, and had somehow successfully tied them together and for that, Mark and Addison were quite grateful as she pulled him back onto the bed with her.
They’d had sex before (many, many times before), so there was no need for slow exploration or learning but when Addison muffled a moan as Mark’s tongue drew lazy circles around her clit, it felt like new. When she came the first time, she could tell there was something different, something good.
And when she came the second time, with him inside of her, she knew there was definitely something more.
--
“So, you and Sloan?”
“Yes, Julia. Me and Sloan.” Addison smiled her thanks at Molly and took the stethoscope the girl offered her. She had become almost like Addison’s assistant, though the language barrier hadn’t gotten much better. Addison now knew how to say “Where is my elephant?” and “Bring me...” in Swahili, while Molly was pretty good at understanding all variants of “Where did [lost article] go?” Luckily, Molly knew almost exactly where everything lost was but the elephant never became a problem.
“Your birthday?”
“Yes. Okay, lean forward please.”
“Hold that and lift your arm up, thank you.” Julia put labels on the vials of blood she just drew. “Great. I win.” She taped some gauze on the inside of her patient’s arm.
Addison stopped what she was doing. “You guys were betting on that?”
“Of course. It was only a matter of time, why shouldn’t we?” She shooed away a fly and guided her patient to lie down and turned on the ultrasound machine. “Découvrons si votre bébé est garçon ou la fille.” She switched into French for the benefit the woman and warned her about the cold jelly.
“Personally,” Addison smiled and waited her turn with the machine, “I wouldn’t mind the cold jelly in this weather.”
“Aren’t you going to ask what I won?” Julia smiled and turned the monitor toward the mother and pointed. “C'est un garçon. Félicitations.” She waited a few moments while the woman smiled and touched her baby on the screen before pushing it over to Addison.
Addison’s patient motioned that an impatiently bored-looking Molly could do the jelly honors and Addison handed her the tube while she got everything else set up. “Power Bars. Asante.” She took the tube back from Molly, capped it, and checked on her patient’s baby girl.
“For that, I’m not telling you.”
“What was wrong with Power Bars?” She stopped. “Hang on a minute. Jules?” She pointed at the screen and then at the small (and, to Addison, extremely primitive) fetal monitor, which was beeping like crazy.
“Looks like you get to perform surgery in the middle of the jungle.”
“Have you ever done it?” She started explaining to her patient what was about to happen and why and tried to calm her down as best she could. Addison had done emergency C-sections an uncountable number of times, but always in a sterile and clean OR. It wasn’t the procedure she was worried about: it was the cleanliness and then the survival of the baby outside of her mother and without a protective incubator as a shield against her underdeveloped immune system.
“Yes. Call your boyfriend over, it’s going to take more than the two of us to get this to work.”
Addison decided that it was not the correct time to correct the other woman on the status of her relationship with Mark and shouted for him. “Mark!” She waited until he turned around. “Wanna do some surgery?” She grinned, knowing that he hadn’t had much of an opportunity for his passion, unless stitching up her forehead and doing the same to a few others counted. It wasn’t plastics, but it was something.
“Hell yes,” he said once he had jogged over.
“Even if it’s pink and squishy?” She started grabbing sealed, single-use surgical tools from the supply drawers while he moved their patient out of sight of the others and to the cleanest area possible.
“Yes.”
--
“Stop playing hero, Mark!” Addison angrily grabbed his pack out of his hands and dropped it next to her feet. “You’re a doctor, not a survivalist or a soldier. Let other people go after them.”
Mark clenched his teeth and took a deep breath. Three fellow doctors plus two site workers had gone off into the jungle a week earlier to attend to a tiny nearby village suffering a malaria outbreak; a messenger had run into their camp with the desperate plea. They were supposed to be back in four days and while there was always wiggle room due to unreliable roads and rain, an extra three days was pushing it - especially when there had been reports of guerilla activity in the area. As one of the bigger and stronger men there, Mark had volunteered to go with a small group to find their missing doctors. Addison wasn’t having anything to do with it.
“Addison. They’re our friends. It will take days to get a message to the embassies of these guys and even longer to get moving on finding them. Chances are, they’re going to need doctors.” He stepped toward her and took her face in his hands. “I don’t want to leave you. But Mike, Nicolai and Allie? They need me. Okay?”
She nodded and a tear dropped down her cheek as she remembered what happened the last time they were separated and the logic she used to let him let her go. “Okay.”
“I love you,” he said firmly and honestly. “I’ll be back. I promise.”
“Mark...” she had a feeling that promises didn’t mean a whole lot when it meant venturing into the jungle with nothing but a vague idea of a destination.
“Addison. I promise.” Mark kissed her softly but sincerely and then smiled at her before grabbing his pack and running off.
Despite the heat, Addison shivered and hugged herself. She jumped, startled when she felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Where the hell did you find him?” Julia’s voice immediately calmed her.
She sighed and gently bit her lip. “I don’t know.”
“He’ll be back. Guys that good always come back.” She patted Addison’s shoulder. “Now, come on, you have people that need your help.”
Addison watched the retreating group for a bit longer before nodding resolutely and turning back around to her patients.
--
“Hasn’t their war been over for like four years?” Addison groaned, mostly to herself, at the news on the single radio station they received.
Julia smiled. “There’s a difference between politically officially over and socially officially over, love. Mark will be fine, stop worrying.”
Addison sighed heavily and absently pushed her dinner around her plate. “I know. But that’s like telling me not to look down.” She looked up. “I’m having trouble sleeping.”
At that, Julia laughed. “My husband and I stopped sleeping together on a regular basis for that reason a month or two before we left.”
“Where is he?” Addison had noticed the ring on the woman’s finger but never asked about it in case of bad memories or loss.
“Sudan. Getting horrifically sunburned. Bloody moron doesn’t know how to use sunscreen.”
“How do you do it? So apart for so long, not even being able to call each other regularly. I mean, it’s not geographically far, but it’s not like you really want to try.”
She smiled softly. “Never underestimate the power of a good love letter. Try tea, Addie, it should help.”
“Tea is hot.” Addison felt like an idiot for mentioning something so obvious, but she was convinced she saw water start to bubble just sitting in the sun earlier that day.
“Then wait for it to cool off.” Julia looked seriously at the redhead. “Or you could just admit to yourself that you love him. That might help, too.”
--
After an hour and convinced that he was going to run his watch out of battery by pushing the indiglo button every twelve seconds, Mark gave up and pulled the pillow out from under his head. He rolled onto his side.
And then onto his stomach.
And then onto his other side.
And returned to lying on his back.
He found himself clutching the useless pillow to him and, despite his frustration, smiled with an idea. He turned onto his side again and curled around the pillow. It was too small and didn’t smell like her, but it was good enough.
--
They all lined up to greet the truck of rescued doctors and workers. No one knew who was hurt or how badly and no one knew if everyone came back; three weeks was an awfully long time to be missing without contact. Molly grabbed Addison’s hand and held it tightly. She knew how much Addison cared about Mark even if Addison didn’t and knew the redhead needed a little comfort. Addison smiled down at the girl and squeezed her hand in return. She nearly cried when Mark hopped off the truck, visibly okay. She held back and let him help the others down and she idly catalogued the injuries of everyone else; the worst appearing to be a tie for a broken leg and a head laceration. News quickly circulated that several bridges had been destroyed and they had to take the long way home, nothing serious.
Molly let go of Addison’s hand and gently pushed her in Mark’s direction before disappearing to greet her brother as he jumped out of the driver’s cab. Addison smiled at Mark and slowly walked toward him.
“I love you,” she said quietly, encircling her arms around his back and holding him to her as tightly as he was holding her to him.
He smiled into her hair and inhaled deeply, the memory of how she smelled and felt in his arms had gotten him through more than a few sleepless nights. “When we’re back home, and when people aren’t throwing grenades or shooting at us, and when we aren’t up to our knees in mud, and when we have cell phones so if we’re gone for three weeks we can tell each other we’re okay...will you marry me?”
Addison nodded and lifted her head from his shoulder, oblivious to the semi-organized chaos around them. “Yes,” she smiled widely and kissed him softly.
--
Mark caught Addison around her waist and pulled her into a quick hug. “You look sad.”
“Molly disappeared again.” She wrinkled her nose. Though she knew the girl would be back, she still missed her.
“Oh, you’re only annoyed because there’s no one to step and fetch for you.” The moment he said it, Mark regretted it.
Addison pulled away from him and crossed her arms and cocked an eyebrow. “Is that your hand I see raised, Mark Sloan? Because, really, all I’ve seen you do all day is band-aids.”
He brushed his finger over her forehead, the cut still noticeable but healing nicely and on its way to not scarring. “I think my band-aids saved you a fairly decent scar.”
“That was going to be such a good story. ‘How’d you get that scar?’ ‘Oh, I was in the Congo and a rebel fighter blew up my tent.’” She pouted with a smile and kissed him quickly. “Fine. I won’t make you my slave. At least not today.”
--
“I’m pregnant,” she told him one extraordinarily hot day while they were unloading supplies. “Theoretically I shouldn’t be, but I am.” Addison paused to roll up the sleeves of her shirt, tucking them up by her shoulders, the light long-sleeved shirt long gone. She would’ve waited to adjust her clothing and allowed the moment its proper happy sincerity, but the heat and sweat was too much. As long as she wasn’t stripping into just her bra, she figured it wasn’t too bad.
He decided he’d ask about the ‘theoretically’ later and accepted the box of measles vaccines she handed him. “You’re pregnant?” He smiled, though couldn’t help making the moment a little more cutely awkward by wiping sweat out of his eyes.
She nodded, a smile gracing her face when she saw his reaction. “Yeah. I’m pregnant.” Addison looked up at a shout of her name and gave Mark an apologetic smile and a kiss on his cheek and sprinted off to take care of a patient who had just gone into labor.
Mark slipped his hand under her shirt later that night while they sat around a small fire, lightly resting his fingers on the soft skin of her stomach. They were the only ones still up.
“Little lower,” Addison whispered and caught his hand in hers, moving it down a bit. “There.”
He brushed her hair off to one side and kissed her neck. “I love you.” Mark’s lips touched the soft spot behind her ear and Addison dropped her head back on his chest and sighed, turning her head just right to give him better access. As Mark dipped his tongue into the hollow of her collarbone and blew a soft breath of cool air onto the wet skin to make her shiver, Addison’s eyes fluttered shut and her breathing began to get heavier. And suddenly Mark’s lips were on hers, kissing her softly and gradually deeper until they were breathing too hard and had to break away. Addison smiled at him and slowly detangled herself from his arms and legs and stood up to offer him her hand and led him to their tent.
Once inside, their lips immediately locked on each other again and their tongues swirled in excitement. Mark broke away first and tugged lightly on the hem of her shirt and pulled it slowly over her head.
“God, you’re beautiful.” He kissed her smile and let her slowly unbutton his shirt, resting his forehead on hers.
“I love you,” she whispered and pushed his shirt to the floor and pulled him toward her for a kiss. She felt his soft hands on her hips trail up her sides to cup her cheeks as he walked them the short distance to their bed. The low height of their tent made certain parts of foreplay a bit awkward and they had abandoned them in a fit of laughter one night after Addison hit her head on the hanging light and knocked it off its hook. She wiggled her hips to help him slide her pants away.
Soon, they were both naked and Mark was tracing Addison’s every curve with his fingers and following with kisses. He was trailing dangerously close to her center and pouted at her when she hooked her legs around his back and urged him up to her. He liked teasing her with his fingers and tongue, and knew she liked it too, so looked at her with a question on his face.
“I just want you,” she smiled at him quietly and kissed him.
He understood and smiled back as he slipped into her and swallowed her gasp. Sex was always longer and more tender when she hadn’t already come, their connection was stronger and sweeter, and the lovemaking was more intense. He moved slowly in a practiced and loving dance and she moved under him in tandem. Mark whispered beautiful things in her ear as he felt them get close. He could tell she wasn’t going to make it on her own so slowly trailed his fingers of the hand that wasn’t cupped around her cheek down between them and was rewarded by a soft moan and a thankful smile when he gently circled her clit.
“Oh, God, Mark,” Addison whispered and arched her back and neck, her mouth open and eyes closed in pleasure. Mark kissed her exposed neck and she pulled his head up to kiss him as she rode the waves of ecstasy he was giving her and again when he came inside of her.
“Addison,” he breathed against her lips, unable to keep the connection as his orgasm hit. He held steady for a few minutes, his eyes locked on hers, and then rolled off of her with a smile. His arms immediately circled around her as she nestled her head on his chest and they cuddled in silence for a while with Mark occasionally kissing her temple or cheek and Addison drawing on his skin. “What did you mean by ‘theoretically’?” He asked softly.
“Does it matter?” She propped her head up and looked at him with a smile on her face and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. Cupping his cheek, she leaned down and kissed him softly and laughed to herself as the piece of hair fell down into her face again.
Mark recognized the look behind the smile and let it go, shaking his head. “No.” He kissed her cheek as she settled into him again. “Despite your best efforts, you got pregnant in the jungle anyway.”
“Shut up.”
--
“Fifteen two, fifteen four, fifteen six, fifteen eight. A double run for eight is sixteen and the right jack is seventeen.” Addison grinned and moved her peg seventeen spots and tried not to laugh while one of the site staffers counted a meager six points and had nothing in his crib.
“What’s your story?” Julia sat down next to Mark one night and watched the cribbage game with him.
“Hm?” Mark turned and looked at the older woman and took a drink of his beer.
“You and Addison. You came together but not as a couple, and now you’re engaged and she’s pregnant. What’s your story?”
Mark smiled at the sound of Addison’s laughter as she easily skunked her opponent to win three games in a row. “I’ve been in love with her for nearly fourteen years.”
“That’s a hell of a long time to wait.”
“She was married for eleven of those.”
“Even more of a hell of a long time to wait.”
“Her ex-husband was my best friend.”
Julia smiled at him. “You’re not giving me any more dirt, are you?”
“I could tell you that it’s complicated.”
“And he wouldn’t be lying.” Addison smirked and slid in next to Mark. “Jules, are you harassing my fiancée again?”
“Yes,” the two answered in unison, though with opposite looks on their faces.
Having overheard part of their conversation, she knew exactly what the older woman wanted to know. “Well,” she took a drink from her water bottle. “I cheated on my husband with him; he cheated on me with a nurse. I went back to my husband, he cheated on me with an intern. I called Mark in a drunken need for sex so he flew out to Seattle and ended up staying, though God knows why.” She rolled her eyes and shook her head, still unsure why he stayed. “Husband and I get divorced, Mark and I have a lot of sex. For some reason, I cut off sex and we made a deal that if we could go sixty days without sex, we’d try the couple thing again. I cheated on that deal with an intern but Mark lied and said he broke the deal so I wouldn’t feel bad about it, insert a few months of successful friendship, a botched trip to LA, just sex with the intern, and Mark being a manwhore and he suggested this.” She grinned at Julia, who was busy trying to figure out all the cheating and sex, and then looked at Mark. “That about it?”
Mark thought for a second and appreciated Addison’s discretion on the abortion page of their history. “Yep.”
“This is the second time in my life I’ve heard a story that officially qualifies as ‘it’s complicated.’ Congratulations.” She smiled goodnight at the two and then left them alone.
Mark slipped his arm around Addison’s shoulder and pulled her toward him, kissing her head when she leaned it on his shoulder. “You summed that up pretty good.”
Addison laughed. “Yeah, I thought so.”
“How are you feeling?” He knew she spent most of the morning either throwing up or trying not to.
She smiled. “Better. Thanks.” She instinctively laid her hand on her stomach. Their child wasn’t nearly big enough to kick yet, or for them to even know sex, but she could tell.
Mark dropped his arm from her shoulder so his hand could cover hers. “You’re pretty amazing you know.”
“I am?”
“You let me drag you into the middle of the jungle where it rains all the time -”
“I’m kinda used to that.”
“And where people regularly shoot at us for no reason. You get shot at, twice, get injured and don’t bat an eye. You perform surgery out here, learn Swahili so you can teach this kid that follows you around what you’re doing, you don’t complain that much about the bugs. And you fell in love with me.”
“And agreed to marry you and then got pregnant.” She turned and smiled at him.
“That too.”
Addison kissed him softly. “Thank you.”
--
“Ready to do this?” Mark took Addison’s hand as they walked toward their gate at the Kinshasa airport to start their flight home.
She swallowed and nodded. Excited to go home, for real showers and real beds and real ORs and friends she hadn’t seen in six months, she was also sad to leave. “Yeah. Let’s get on a plane to Douala, to Brussels, to Chicago, to Seattle.” She smirked, tangentially annoyed that she’d have to figure out how to sleep through most of it on her own: the sleeping medication she had wasn’t supposed to be used by pregnant women.
“Only if I can sleep in your bed when we get back. The hotel bed really isn’t all that great.”
“No, yours really sucked.”
“I could move in with you,” he suggested as he handed the gate agent his ticket, passport and about twelve other pieces of paper.
“You could.” She smiled at the agent as he checked hers. “And you probably should.”
“Since we’re getting married and having a baby and all that.”
“Exactly.”