(no subject)
Title: A Good Start [1/2]
Pairing: Mark/Addison; A negligible amount of Mark/Izzie because I needed a cheap plot device.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Their daughters meet by chance and through a discussion during marching band (yes) practice, a matchmaking idea is born.
Word Count: 5,478
Different disclaimer: I was a drummer. I reserve all rights to make fun of them.
Note: These are the nineteenth and twentieth kids I’ve invented. I fail.
“Okay, so.” Lily grabs a glass and shoves it against the refrigerator door water faucet, leaning against the fridge as she waits for it to slowly fill up. “There’s this new girl in the pit, Kelly? She plays xylophone and the low brass can’t walk so we sat around during practice talking and decided that you really need to meet her dad.” She glares at the glass and gives up, drinks the half that’s been poured as quickly as possible and then starts again for a refill. “Because he’s, like, perfect for you.”
“Have you met him?” Addison leans against the counter, amused at her daughter’s bubbliness and constant grasping at every opportunity to play matchmaker. To her credit, unlike her mother, Lily rarely fails.
She swallows, giving up again. “No. But she’s been here two weeks and already agrees with me that Brian Atkins was a waste of my time when everyone else, who I’ve known for ages, thinks I’m nuts for dumping him. So, clearly, good judgment.”
“Clearly.” Addison pushes her hair behind her ear and crosses her ankles. “Not that I don’t appreciate the enthusiasm, but...”
Deciding that she’s had enough with the water, Lily sets her empty glass on the counter next to her and hops up on top of it. She kicks her legs out in front of her and catches her toes on the island Addison’s been meaning to take out for years and stares at her mother across the kitchen. “You haven’t had a date in what, three years? Four?” When she was five, Lily accepted that she didn’t have a father. When she was eight and understood the concept of a sperm donor, she figured out how it was that she didn’t have a father. When she was fourteen and finally asked her mother about it, she understood why it was she didn’t have a father. “Honestly, Mom.”
“Lily, I’m fine.” She gives her daughter a please give it a rest look when Lily gave her a you’re totally lying look.
“Consider it? Please? You need someone other than me, Sav, and the people you work with. And you really need to get...” She says it entirely because she knows it will fluster her mother.
Closing her eyes, Addison puts out her hands in a gesture of protest. “No no no no no. Do not finish that sentence.” She feels the color rising into her cheeks. Her daughter has a point, a very good point, but she’d rather it not be her daughter bringing it up. She doubts she’ll ever get over the fact that her seventeen year-old daughter is getting more action than she is but she tries not to think about that too much. For many reasons.
She shrugs and holds her hands up in innocence. “I’m just saying.”
“Yeah, well. Don’t. End of conversation.” Pulling a maternal tone and look, Addison gestures for Lily to get off the counter so she can start dinner.
--
“Kelly Marie.”
“Dad, she died three years ago. You can go out again,” Kelly says softly, reassuring her father.
Mark crosses his arms and looks away from his daughter. Though there was a decent amount of attraction, it was mostly a shotgun marriage that existed for appearances, finances and Kelly (though not necessarily in that order). The night Izzie told him she was pregnant was the night he considered getting a condom permanently attached to his penis. But it worked for thirteen years; even if he wasn’t jubilantly happy, he was happy and even on his worst days of wishing that things had turned out much, much differently, his daughter smiled or told a funny story and he wished that things had turned out only slightly differently. Despite it all, he would be lying if he said that losing Izzie didn’t hurt like hell. It’s part of the reason he moved them to New York. “Yes. I can,” he emphasizes the word can and looks back to her.
“And you should.” Kelly twists her blonde hair up off her neck and holds it on top of her head for a few moments before letting it fall down again. “Look. I’m not stupid. If you’re holding out because you think it’ll hurt me, stop. Go out there, find happy again.” Taking a cue directly from her mother, Kelly has always believed that everyone deserves a shot at love and happiness and that it’s out there for everyone. She knows that Izzie didn’t quite get who she wanted husband-wise but she knows that her mother made a damn good effort to make it as close to paradise as she could.
He pulls out a chair and flips it around and sits in it backwards across from her. “And I’m not stupid. Kel, I don’t want you thinking I’m shopping for a replacement mom for you.” As much as he wants to get out there again (and as ready as he finally is), he’s worried about how it’ll seem to Kelly.
Everyone had told him that priorities change when you have a kid, that life stops being all about you and becomes all about them. He used to think that it was just something people said for some reason; he’d almost thought that it was some sort of warning. Even though he loves his daughter deeply, for a while he hated the discovery that what everyone had said was true. But one day when she was three, she crawled into his lap and pushed away his medical journal and pouted and said “play with me” and until that moment he never would have thought that playing with Barbie dolls for two hours would trump reading about a twenty-eight hour reconstructive surgery.
“I’m sixteen. Not six. Just meet her.”
He drifts away from the point. “Obviously you told her why your mom’s not in the picture. What about her dad?”
Kelly sighs, bored. Feeling that this is small talk better suited to a first date, she rolls her eyes but answers anyway. “She doesn’t have one. Her mom apparently had enough of men and found a sperm donor.”
At that, Mark laughs. “She had enough of men so you’re trying to set me up with her. For that, you get to make dinner.”
“I made dinner last night!”
“And I’ve made your lunch every day since you were five.”
She sighs heavily again. “Think about it? Because, seriously? You need to get out there again. And you might get some interesting conversation if nothing else.”
“Fine.”
--
The girls decide on the marching band state finals as the time to meet.
Kelly admits that it’s a little geeky (Lily willingly states that it’s very geeky), but the girls don’t want it to be construed as a date. They’re daughters and have to live every day with any consequences so refuse to put their parents in any situation reminiscent of a blind date. It’s just a chance to talk and say hi and get a sense of the other person and whether it’s worthwhile to hand over phone numbers.
Plus there are escape plans. Somewhat obvious, sure, but less awkward than a dinner completed through dessert because it’s rude to walk out and less stressful than a run to the bathroom that really involves the back exit. Promised celebration dinners alone (on the other hand, promised celebration dinners that can only improve with an additional two), promised consolation dinners (on the other hand, same logic but they turn into commiseration dinner). Getting lost in the crowd is a bit of a long shot, as they’re both pit percussionists and drummers are elitist, but necessity is the mother of invention and Kelly’s sure that her dad has personally improved the chest size of one of the color guard girls so he might want to ask if she’s thought more about that nose job.
Upon hearing Lily’s mother’s name, Mark barely manages to avoid spitting his water across the table and passes the coughing off as swallowing it the wrong way. He knew her last name was Montgomery and Montgomery is a fairly common name, but Addison Montgomery isn’t. He also knows that Lily’s mother is a neonatal surgeon at Mt. Sinai (Kelly tells him this so that he’ll be prepared) and knows for a fact that there is only one neonatal surgeon named Addison Montgomery in the country. He laughs as he brushes his teeth the night before they’re supposed to meet for the “first time” because life is just that absurd and maybe, just maybe, fate exists.
Addison, on the other hand, doesn’t have a clue. Kelly’s last name is Stevens and Addison only researches doctors whose help she needs, so she thinks she’s meeting a Mark Stevens, plastic surgeon at Bellevue. When Lily tells her that the man’s name is Mark and he’s a plastic surgeon, her mind immediately goes places it hasn’t gone in years. But over a pre-bedtime cup of tea, she assures herself that there’s more than one plastic surgeon named Mark and there’s probably more than one plastic surgeon named Mark at Bellevue.
--
Addison’s eyes open wide when she sees the man her daughter is casually walking her toward. She recovers before Lily can notice and her original nerves disappear - the nerves that come along with meeting someone you know someone else is trying to get you to go out with - but new ones appear. The kind of nerves that come along with meeting someone you haven’t seen in almost eighteen years and someone you’ve made a point to forget ever existed in your life. She’s not sure what shocks her more: that she’s seeing him again...or that he has a kid. Addison took a few years off of work, which made ignoring gossip easy, but she made it very clear from the moment she started at Mt. Sinai again when Lily was three that she didn’t want to hear about anyone associated with Seattle Grace. She keeps in touch with Miranda Bailey and Callie Torres and occasionally gives a call to Preston Burke and about twice a year there’s an email from Richard Webber but she knows that none of them would tell her anything unless she asked (and even then they might not). And she’s done a good job of not knowing anything and now she kind of wishes that she’d had a heads up on the daughter.
It’s unmistakable who her mother was and any necessary sympathy she felt for Mark Stevens disappears and is replaced by true hurt for Mark Sloan. She knows how much he really wanted to just be with someone. Despite the gruffness and attitude, he once admitted (albeit a little drunkenly) that he wanted that normal, traditional lifestyle with a wife and kids, though he passed on the fence.
But she masks her shock as best she can, knowing she can’t hide it fully from him but she can do an okay job from their daughters.
Mark suppresses an urge to laugh when he sees her eyes go wide in surprise. He feels that he should feel badly having the upper hand, but he didn’t do anything with it so he figures it’s okay to almost laugh. She’s aged well and somehow manages to be more elegant than ever, even in jeans and a t-shirt. Her smile still makes him want to curl up in bed with her in a patch of sunlight and never leave.
“Hi,” Addison says a little nervously (though not for the reasons her daughter thinks) with a smile. “I’m Addison.” From the moment she saw him, she decided to play it like they’d never met before. She explained it to herself that it was a good way to properly start over but really it was so Lily wouldn’t ask anything.
He smiles back and offers her his hand. “Mark.” They shake and he gives her hand a little extra squeeze.
Kelly and Lily look back and forth between Mark and Addison and roll their eyes at each other. “We’re gonna go,” Kelly says. “Over there.”
“See you at home?” Lily doesn’t wait for a response and tilts her head and the two girls disappear, fully aware that the celebration dinners they told their parents they could use as an excuse won’t need to happen.
Addison looks around and makes sure that they’re fully out of sight before she starts to laugh and steps in closer to give him a hug. She closes her eyes and breathes in his scent as he holds her close to him. “I’m so sorry, Mark,” she whispers into his neck, hugging him a little longer than appropriate for two people in a public area. He still uses the same cologne, the scent that got her through so many difficult nights.
He nods and pulls away. “Thanks.” He smiles at her, her piercing blue eyes have lost the intense anger that found such a permanent home in them the last time he saw her and have softened into warm and caring, though no less intense.
Addison is abruptly pushed back into him as an energetic snare drummer sprints by whooping and holding a color guard rifle over his head as the owner of said rifle runs after him, screaming all sorts of obscenities and threats about withholding sex. She bites her lip against a fit of giggles (because she remembers times like that from her own band geek days) and looks up at Mark and the moment their eyes meet they both lose control and laugh until there are tears in both their eyes.
“Let’s get out of here,” he suggests. Mark waves goodbye to his daughter when they pass by the tight collection of drummers. He smiles as he watches Lily with one hand on her hip and her head tipped to the side and jaw set as she firmly explains the physics behind the potentially bad idea that is bass drum mallets and timpani heads to a freshman and wonders if she learned that from her mother or if it’s genetic. He’s pretty sure that Kelly’s favorite word is coded in her DNA, a gift from Izzie along with her looks.
After waving to Lily and giving her a look that fails to sternly tell her to shut up and stop smiling, Addison falls back into step with Mark. “Where are we going?”
“Coffee?”
“Sure.”
--
One of the side effects of Addison not wanting to know anything about anybody is that nobody knows anything about her. Miranda, Callie and Richard occasionally relayed that she’s doing okay if someone asked and after two years, people stopped asking and after four years, people began to forget that she used to be a major fixture at Seattle Grace. Until he found out that it was her daughter his daughter was friends with, Mark didn’t know that she even had a daughter. He knew that she was back in New York, a little detective work and some common sense led him to that conclusion, but didn’t have a clue about Lily: he respected her decision to keep her personal life private. He imagines that her choice to stay hidden from him blocked her from knowing about him and that his daughter must be as much of a shock to her as hers is to him. After buying her a simple coffee, he pulls out a chair for her and sits down opposite her.
They sip their hot drinks in silence for a few minutes and Addison scrunches her nose in a pout as Mark quietly laughs when she burns her tongue.
“You get to start,” she smiles at him.
“Why do I have to start?”
Laughing, Addison pushes her hair out of her face. “You’re the guy.”
He nods, knowing he can’t get around that logic. “What do you want to know?”
“How did you end up with a kid?” Her lips curl in an admiring smile, approving of the way that he’s grown up.
He knows that Addison isn’t asking him for the date, time and position that they forgot the condom or the day Izzie forgot to take her pill so takes a breath to gather himself and then launches into the saga.
He smartly decides not to draw parallels between Addison and Izzie. Comfort when the person they thought they loved refused to love them back, an incident in an on-call room. Mark had begun to think it was his curse. Find a nice girl, learn that nice girl loves someone else, comfort nice girl because the someone else is an idiot, fall into bed with nice girl, get nice girl pregnant.
Knowing that Addison knows about the George thing, he doesn’t bother with background information. “Once George failed out of the program and officially left, she didn’t see him as much and when she did Callie was always with him. She eventually gave up and one day I found her crying in an on call room and gave her a hug. It was just sex, nothing else. We were exclusive for about a year. She asked for it, for her own sanity,” he smiles as Addison nods in understanding. “And then she got pregnant. We made it work pretty well; got married when Kelly was three. Partly a promise that I wouldn’t run off, partly because it made sense, and...” he trails off, not knowing how to finish that sentence.
Addison knows that Mark Sloan would be the last man to cut and run when there’s a child in the picture and a woman he genuinely cares for. She smiles at the image of Isobel Stevens being a mother. It’s a perfect fit and she’s certain that Kelly has a better chance at growing up relatively unscathed (even now without her mother) than any child she and Mark would’ve had then. “Were you happy?” Hearing the apprehension in his voice, Addison automatically senses that he’s worried about talking about another woman with her and she wants him to know that it’s okay that he moved on after she cruelly used him and disappeared.
“Yeah. I was.” He smiles softly and genuinely. They were happy together and good together. Maybe not great together and certainly not perfect and they weren’t the kind of love that a true marriage should be based on, but there was some kind of love involved. “Three years ago she was driving home in a thunderstorm. A bridge flooded and trapped her car against the guardrail.” Getting the phone call that she was in an accident terrified him and listening to one of his friends tell him she died was even worse and it isn’t a night he enjoys reliving at all. He ends it there and pauses for a few seconds to watch her face before saying “your turn.”
“My turn to explain how I ended up with a kid?”
“You bet.” He grins at her, glad that the pressure is off of him.
Addison nods into her empty cup. It was a hard road getting there and Lily is, literally, the ‘one last try’ in ‘one last try because I don’t think I can handle this any more.’ She never wanted more than one, but she always puts great effort into making sure that she isn’t going to screw up with Lily because there isn’t an opportunity for another chance. “I’ve always wanted kids. I mean, I wasn’t ready before and then that was a bad situation but I’ve wanted them. And one day it hit me that I was running out of time. Naomi’s a fertility specialist - that’s why I went to LA.”
Mark nods. She never told him why she went, except to say that she needed a bit of a break and some room to breathe and now he understands why she didn’t tell him the truth.
“She said I was out of time.” Her memory takes a brief trip back to that elevator with her knees tucked to her chest, trying to pull herself together enough to get back to Naomi’s house. “But you know how people just know stuff? It was still in me. So. Two years of nothing, but then.”
“And now there’s a mini-Addison running around the streets of New York.”
“She’s actually taller than me.” Addison’s quick to point this out to anyone who mentions it. “God. It’s completely insane,” she laughs at herself. Thoroughly glad she took a sabbatical from work while she was pregnant and for the first three years of her daughter’s life, she has no idea how she would have managed it otherwise.
Mark chuckles, remembering how hard and sometimes frustrating it is with Kelly, and there were two of them raising her for most of it so far. He likes to think that he’s done a good job of getting her from thirteen to sixteen on his own without too much damage, but some days he isn’t sure. And from the unfocused gaze in Addison’s eyes, he can tell that she has had the same doubts every day since her daughter was born. “Well, it is entirely your fault.”
She lightly kicks him under the table and makes a protesting face that makes him laugh instead of apologize. Joining in on his laughter, she simply shakes her head. It’s one of the few times in her life she’s willing to have something be entirely her fault; she’ll willingly take responsibility for her daughter. She plays with her necklace and watches him as their laughter calms and wonders if there’s anything to this. If they’ll just be friends (because she can’t imagine not seeing him again - outside school events - now that she knows he’s here) or if it’ll be something more.
He’s wondering the same thing but knows that there’s no room to screw up this time no matter which way they go. Their daughters aren’t little, it isn’t as though the two of them having a fall out will affect their friendship too much. But they’re getting older and it’s likely the last best shot both of them will have. And the moment he saw her that afternoon, he knew that she’s the one he’s supposed to be with. Whether she’s his closest friend or the love of his life, he’s supposed to be with her.
Mark checks the clock on the wall over Addison’s shoulder. “You want to grab dinner?”
--
“Well then,” Lily smirks as her mother comes home after eleven. She pushes away the judges’ comments from earlier in the day and turns around to look at Addison.
“Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere?” Addison raises an eyebrow in confusion, remembering that Mark said something about a party, and hangs up her coat.
She sighs heavily. “It got busted before we got there. You think in Chelsea they’d let a bunch of high school kids have a celebration party but no.”
“Who the hell lives in Chelsea?” She pours herself a glass of water and then one for Lily when she motions that she’d like one too and falls into the chair across the table from her daughter.
“John has two daddies. Thanks.” Lily drinks most of it in one go, her throat’s sore from yelling for most of the morning during a last minute practice. “So,” she starts, matter-of-factly. “How was dinner?” She looks over the rim of her glasses at her mother like her mother does to her every time she comes home from a date. Payback.
Addison wonders if this is how it feels to be her daughter at times and solemnly swears to give it up. “It was...good.” She smiles. They made a pact not to tell their daughters that they knew each other before. They’re certain it’ll come out at some point, someone will say something about medical school or Seattle and their cover will blow, but for the moment they choose to let their kids feel like they did really well. “Don’t give me that look,” she whines. “Yes,” she throws up her hands in embarrassed defeat and slumps down against the back of the chair a little red in the face. “I’m seeing him again.”
“You’re welcome.”
Addison simply shakes her head and can’t help but give the girl credit. Taking note of what Lily was reading, she takes on a Mom Tone and Look. “Okay. I was a band geek in high school. The kind of band geek like that trumpet player you keep making fun of and the kind of band geek who sat at home after a competition and reviewed every note and step. So, put away the judges’ notes and go out.”
“You’re telling me to go out.”
“I’m not telling you to get phenomenally drunk and participate in a cocaine-induced raging orgy. But it’s Saturday night, you guys just won state for the third year in a row, go out.”
“You were waiting to use that orgy line, weren’t you?”
Addison sighs and props her chin on her palm and smiles a little. “Yeah, I was.”
“Thought so.”
--
“You’re home late.” Kelly hits pause on her video game and looks up at Mark.
“You’re home.” He blinks. He likes knowing where she is, but he distinctly remembers something about probably being home in the morning.
She quickly saves the game and the turns off the television and hops up onto a chair. “Your reason’s probably better than mine.”
Mark drops onto the couch next to her chair. “Mine doesn’t involve the cops.”
“Dad. Please don’t make me play Twenty Questions.”
“Kelly,” he sits up and smiles at her, “she’s good. You did good, kid.”
“Can I dress you for your first official date?” She flashes him a goofy wide grin that she got entirely from her mother.
“I am perfectly capable of dressing myself, Kelly.” He smiles back despite his words.
She looks at him and crosses her arms. “No, actually, you’re not. Blue scrubs day after day do not a fashionable man make.”
His clothes were perfectly fine the last time he dated Addison and for the entire time he was married to Izzie so he doesn’t see what the big problem is. “Fine,” he gives in to his daughter’s blue eyes and hopeful smile like he always does. “You can dress me.” He pauses. “Kel, I know that you’re still not quite solid with New York, but find someone and go out.”
“Trying to get rid of me?” Kelly teases her dad with a grin. “As it’s eleven-thirty and everything for people under eighteen closes at midnight, I’m staying in.” She smiles, recognizing the look in Mark’s eyes that says he wants to hang out with her but doesn’t want to sound overbearingly paternal. “Want to do anything?”
He grins. “You owe me a game of pool.”
She gracefully falls out of the chair and runs her fingers through her hair as she stands. “You’re on.”
--
It’s three dates before they kiss.
With his hand on her lower back, he gently guides her toward him. When he looks at her for a sign that says she’d like a good night kiss in addition to the hug, she touches her lips to his. Their eyes close and they hold steady except for Addison reaching up to circle her arms around his neck. Finally breaking the simple kiss, Mark leans his forehead against hers and wraps both arms around her back, holding her to him.
“I’m not going to hurt you again, Addison,” he promises, mistaking her tension for hesitation.
She smiles and looks up at him, gently shaking her hair out of her face. “I wasn’t worried about that.”
Mark smiles back but doesn’t miss her eyes glittering with a few tears. “Then what is it?”
“Me being stupid,” she laughs lightly. “I really, really, want to pull you into bed right now - two dates ago, actually - but I think I need us to go slow on this.” It’s idiotic and she knows it. She knows that he’s grown and matured and that there’s no way he could - or would - hurt her again, but that nagging part of her that didn’t manage to forget about him or how he was with her twenty years ago won’t let her take that leap of blind faith.
He nods and softly kisses her again. “Okay. But,” he tucks a piece of hair out of her face for her, “Kelly’s out until later if you want to come back and...”
“Cuddle?” Addison supplies the word for him and smiles widely, laughing as she sees his face go red. “Yeah, I’d like that,” she answers.
His apartment isn’t anything like his old one. It’s bigger and more a place to live than just a place to sleep and Addison supposes that the change makes sense but it’s still not what she’s used to even if it’s what she expected. She smiles when sees hint of the futon couch in another room, amazed that it hasn’t fallen apart yet. Mark leads her to a very comfortable-looking couch and motions for her to pick out a movie while he fixes after-dinner glasses of wine.
“Seriously?” He hands her a glass and raises an eyebrow at the choice of Sleepless in Seattle.
“You would prefer Breakfast at Tiffany’s?” Addison smiles and tugs him onto the couch with her. She likes that he was once married and has a daughter because it means that his movie collection has expanded beyond the Die Hard and Mission Impossible series’, The Bourne [noun] and documentaries on The Clash. She cuddles into his side and sighs happily when his arm immediately comes up to circle around her.
It isn’t long before Mark notices that her breathing has steadied and her eyes have fallen shut. She claims she’s awake when he nudges her a little but she’s back asleep in minutes. He watches the rest of the movie on his own because he can’t bear to move her when she looks that peaceful and he can’t help the small smile on his face as Sam talks about how much he loves his wife. He looks down at Addison and brushes a few stray red hairs out of her face.
As close as he and Izzie were, there was never that extra spark. There was never the extra energy that just made life a little easier simply by having her in the room. And he’s overjoyed to feel that it hasn’t disappeared over the years with Addison.
“...’m awake,” she mumbles as he shifts around to turn off the television and a few lights. Contradicting her words, she curls up on the couch in the space he vacated and tugs a blanket over her.
Mark crouches down in front of her and cups her cheek, smiling. “You don’t have a curfew. You’re staying here.”
Addison nods and doesn’t put up much of a fight when he slips his arms around her and lifts her up to carry her to his bedroom. He finds her some spare clothes to sleep in and when he comes back from brushing his teeth, he sees Addison hanging up her cell phone.
“I don’t have a curfew,” she yawns and shrinks into his shirt, “but I do have a daughter.” She smiles sleepily.
“Oh,” he mutters, remembering that he too has a daughter, one who has another hour until curfew and that he always, always, stays up until she comes home.
Addison smiles at him and kisses his cheek. “Stay up for her. I’ll be okay.”
“Yeah?” He begins to pull down the covers for her and helps her snuggle under the blankets.
She opens her eyes fully and rolls onto her back so she’s looking straight up at him. “Mark, she’s your kid. She comes first.”
Mark nods and kisses her quickly and sweetly and tucks the covers in around her, wishing her sweet dreams before kissing her once more and slipping out, leaving the room in darkness behind him. It’s only twenty minutes longer before Kelly comes home, so exhausted that she barely manages to eke out a greeting before disappearing into her room to fall right into bed. He intends to tell her that Addison is staying over because it’s the polite thing to do, but it looks like the exhaustion isn’t necessarily the best kind of exhaustion so he simply gives her a hug and lets her go to sleep.
Addison is fast asleep when he comes to join her in bed but she responds immediately to his presence and rolls over, cuddling into his chest as he puts his arms around her. Though he wants to stay awake longer and enjoy having her in his arms again, breathing in her scent and feeling her breathe, his eyes start to close and he gives in, quietly drifting off to sleep.
part two
Pairing: Mark/Addison; A negligible amount of Mark/Izzie because I needed a cheap plot device.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Their daughters meet by chance and through a discussion during marching band (yes) practice, a matchmaking idea is born.
Word Count: 5,478
Different disclaimer: I was a drummer. I reserve all rights to make fun of them.
Note: These are the nineteenth and twentieth kids I’ve invented. I fail.
“Okay, so.” Lily grabs a glass and shoves it against the refrigerator door water faucet, leaning against the fridge as she waits for it to slowly fill up. “There’s this new girl in the pit, Kelly? She plays xylophone and the low brass can’t walk so we sat around during practice talking and decided that you really need to meet her dad.” She glares at the glass and gives up, drinks the half that’s been poured as quickly as possible and then starts again for a refill. “Because he’s, like, perfect for you.”
“Have you met him?” Addison leans against the counter, amused at her daughter’s bubbliness and constant grasping at every opportunity to play matchmaker. To her credit, unlike her mother, Lily rarely fails.
She swallows, giving up again. “No. But she’s been here two weeks and already agrees with me that Brian Atkins was a waste of my time when everyone else, who I’ve known for ages, thinks I’m nuts for dumping him. So, clearly, good judgment.”
“Clearly.” Addison pushes her hair behind her ear and crosses her ankles. “Not that I don’t appreciate the enthusiasm, but...”
Deciding that she’s had enough with the water, Lily sets her empty glass on the counter next to her and hops up on top of it. She kicks her legs out in front of her and catches her toes on the island Addison’s been meaning to take out for years and stares at her mother across the kitchen. “You haven’t had a date in what, three years? Four?” When she was five, Lily accepted that she didn’t have a father. When she was eight and understood the concept of a sperm donor, she figured out how it was that she didn’t have a father. When she was fourteen and finally asked her mother about it, she understood why it was she didn’t have a father. “Honestly, Mom.”
“Lily, I’m fine.” She gives her daughter a please give it a rest look when Lily gave her a you’re totally lying look.
“Consider it? Please? You need someone other than me, Sav, and the people you work with. And you really need to get...” She says it entirely because she knows it will fluster her mother.
Closing her eyes, Addison puts out her hands in a gesture of protest. “No no no no no. Do not finish that sentence.” She feels the color rising into her cheeks. Her daughter has a point, a very good point, but she’d rather it not be her daughter bringing it up. She doubts she’ll ever get over the fact that her seventeen year-old daughter is getting more action than she is but she tries not to think about that too much. For many reasons.
She shrugs and holds her hands up in innocence. “I’m just saying.”
“Yeah, well. Don’t. End of conversation.” Pulling a maternal tone and look, Addison gestures for Lily to get off the counter so she can start dinner.
--
“Kelly Marie.”
“Dad, she died three years ago. You can go out again,” Kelly says softly, reassuring her father.
Mark crosses his arms and looks away from his daughter. Though there was a decent amount of attraction, it was mostly a shotgun marriage that existed for appearances, finances and Kelly (though not necessarily in that order). The night Izzie told him she was pregnant was the night he considered getting a condom permanently attached to his penis. But it worked for thirteen years; even if he wasn’t jubilantly happy, he was happy and even on his worst days of wishing that things had turned out much, much differently, his daughter smiled or told a funny story and he wished that things had turned out only slightly differently. Despite it all, he would be lying if he said that losing Izzie didn’t hurt like hell. It’s part of the reason he moved them to New York. “Yes. I can,” he emphasizes the word can and looks back to her.
“And you should.” Kelly twists her blonde hair up off her neck and holds it on top of her head for a few moments before letting it fall down again. “Look. I’m not stupid. If you’re holding out because you think it’ll hurt me, stop. Go out there, find happy again.” Taking a cue directly from her mother, Kelly has always believed that everyone deserves a shot at love and happiness and that it’s out there for everyone. She knows that Izzie didn’t quite get who she wanted husband-wise but she knows that her mother made a damn good effort to make it as close to paradise as she could.
He pulls out a chair and flips it around and sits in it backwards across from her. “And I’m not stupid. Kel, I don’t want you thinking I’m shopping for a replacement mom for you.” As much as he wants to get out there again (and as ready as he finally is), he’s worried about how it’ll seem to Kelly.
Everyone had told him that priorities change when you have a kid, that life stops being all about you and becomes all about them. He used to think that it was just something people said for some reason; he’d almost thought that it was some sort of warning. Even though he loves his daughter deeply, for a while he hated the discovery that what everyone had said was true. But one day when she was three, she crawled into his lap and pushed away his medical journal and pouted and said “play with me” and until that moment he never would have thought that playing with Barbie dolls for two hours would trump reading about a twenty-eight hour reconstructive surgery.
“I’m sixteen. Not six. Just meet her.”
He drifts away from the point. “Obviously you told her why your mom’s not in the picture. What about her dad?”
Kelly sighs, bored. Feeling that this is small talk better suited to a first date, she rolls her eyes but answers anyway. “She doesn’t have one. Her mom apparently had enough of men and found a sperm donor.”
At that, Mark laughs. “She had enough of men so you’re trying to set me up with her. For that, you get to make dinner.”
“I made dinner last night!”
“And I’ve made your lunch every day since you were five.”
She sighs heavily again. “Think about it? Because, seriously? You need to get out there again. And you might get some interesting conversation if nothing else.”
“Fine.”
--
The girls decide on the marching band state finals as the time to meet.
Kelly admits that it’s a little geeky (Lily willingly states that it’s very geeky), but the girls don’t want it to be construed as a date. They’re daughters and have to live every day with any consequences so refuse to put their parents in any situation reminiscent of a blind date. It’s just a chance to talk and say hi and get a sense of the other person and whether it’s worthwhile to hand over phone numbers.
Plus there are escape plans. Somewhat obvious, sure, but less awkward than a dinner completed through dessert because it’s rude to walk out and less stressful than a run to the bathroom that really involves the back exit. Promised celebration dinners alone (on the other hand, promised celebration dinners that can only improve with an additional two), promised consolation dinners (on the other hand, same logic but they turn into commiseration dinner). Getting lost in the crowd is a bit of a long shot, as they’re both pit percussionists and drummers are elitist, but necessity is the mother of invention and Kelly’s sure that her dad has personally improved the chest size of one of the color guard girls so he might want to ask if she’s thought more about that nose job.
Upon hearing Lily’s mother’s name, Mark barely manages to avoid spitting his water across the table and passes the coughing off as swallowing it the wrong way. He knew her last name was Montgomery and Montgomery is a fairly common name, but Addison Montgomery isn’t. He also knows that Lily’s mother is a neonatal surgeon at Mt. Sinai (Kelly tells him this so that he’ll be prepared) and knows for a fact that there is only one neonatal surgeon named Addison Montgomery in the country. He laughs as he brushes his teeth the night before they’re supposed to meet for the “first time” because life is just that absurd and maybe, just maybe, fate exists.
Addison, on the other hand, doesn’t have a clue. Kelly’s last name is Stevens and Addison only researches doctors whose help she needs, so she thinks she’s meeting a Mark Stevens, plastic surgeon at Bellevue. When Lily tells her that the man’s name is Mark and he’s a plastic surgeon, her mind immediately goes places it hasn’t gone in years. But over a pre-bedtime cup of tea, she assures herself that there’s more than one plastic surgeon named Mark and there’s probably more than one plastic surgeon named Mark at Bellevue.
--
Addison’s eyes open wide when she sees the man her daughter is casually walking her toward. She recovers before Lily can notice and her original nerves disappear - the nerves that come along with meeting someone you know someone else is trying to get you to go out with - but new ones appear. The kind of nerves that come along with meeting someone you haven’t seen in almost eighteen years and someone you’ve made a point to forget ever existed in your life. She’s not sure what shocks her more: that she’s seeing him again...or that he has a kid. Addison took a few years off of work, which made ignoring gossip easy, but she made it very clear from the moment she started at Mt. Sinai again when Lily was three that she didn’t want to hear about anyone associated with Seattle Grace. She keeps in touch with Miranda Bailey and Callie Torres and occasionally gives a call to Preston Burke and about twice a year there’s an email from Richard Webber but she knows that none of them would tell her anything unless she asked (and even then they might not). And she’s done a good job of not knowing anything and now she kind of wishes that she’d had a heads up on the daughter.
It’s unmistakable who her mother was and any necessary sympathy she felt for Mark Stevens disappears and is replaced by true hurt for Mark Sloan. She knows how much he really wanted to just be with someone. Despite the gruffness and attitude, he once admitted (albeit a little drunkenly) that he wanted that normal, traditional lifestyle with a wife and kids, though he passed on the fence.
But she masks her shock as best she can, knowing she can’t hide it fully from him but she can do an okay job from their daughters.
Mark suppresses an urge to laugh when he sees her eyes go wide in surprise. He feels that he should feel badly having the upper hand, but he didn’t do anything with it so he figures it’s okay to almost laugh. She’s aged well and somehow manages to be more elegant than ever, even in jeans and a t-shirt. Her smile still makes him want to curl up in bed with her in a patch of sunlight and never leave.
“Hi,” Addison says a little nervously (though not for the reasons her daughter thinks) with a smile. “I’m Addison.” From the moment she saw him, she decided to play it like they’d never met before. She explained it to herself that it was a good way to properly start over but really it was so Lily wouldn’t ask anything.
He smiles back and offers her his hand. “Mark.” They shake and he gives her hand a little extra squeeze.
Kelly and Lily look back and forth between Mark and Addison and roll their eyes at each other. “We’re gonna go,” Kelly says. “Over there.”
“See you at home?” Lily doesn’t wait for a response and tilts her head and the two girls disappear, fully aware that the celebration dinners they told their parents they could use as an excuse won’t need to happen.
Addison looks around and makes sure that they’re fully out of sight before she starts to laugh and steps in closer to give him a hug. She closes her eyes and breathes in his scent as he holds her close to him. “I’m so sorry, Mark,” she whispers into his neck, hugging him a little longer than appropriate for two people in a public area. He still uses the same cologne, the scent that got her through so many difficult nights.
He nods and pulls away. “Thanks.” He smiles at her, her piercing blue eyes have lost the intense anger that found such a permanent home in them the last time he saw her and have softened into warm and caring, though no less intense.
Addison is abruptly pushed back into him as an energetic snare drummer sprints by whooping and holding a color guard rifle over his head as the owner of said rifle runs after him, screaming all sorts of obscenities and threats about withholding sex. She bites her lip against a fit of giggles (because she remembers times like that from her own band geek days) and looks up at Mark and the moment their eyes meet they both lose control and laugh until there are tears in both their eyes.
“Let’s get out of here,” he suggests. Mark waves goodbye to his daughter when they pass by the tight collection of drummers. He smiles as he watches Lily with one hand on her hip and her head tipped to the side and jaw set as she firmly explains the physics behind the potentially bad idea that is bass drum mallets and timpani heads to a freshman and wonders if she learned that from her mother or if it’s genetic. He’s pretty sure that Kelly’s favorite word is coded in her DNA, a gift from Izzie along with her looks.
After waving to Lily and giving her a look that fails to sternly tell her to shut up and stop smiling, Addison falls back into step with Mark. “Where are we going?”
“Coffee?”
“Sure.”
--
One of the side effects of Addison not wanting to know anything about anybody is that nobody knows anything about her. Miranda, Callie and Richard occasionally relayed that she’s doing okay if someone asked and after two years, people stopped asking and after four years, people began to forget that she used to be a major fixture at Seattle Grace. Until he found out that it was her daughter his daughter was friends with, Mark didn’t know that she even had a daughter. He knew that she was back in New York, a little detective work and some common sense led him to that conclusion, but didn’t have a clue about Lily: he respected her decision to keep her personal life private. He imagines that her choice to stay hidden from him blocked her from knowing about him and that his daughter must be as much of a shock to her as hers is to him. After buying her a simple coffee, he pulls out a chair for her and sits down opposite her.
They sip their hot drinks in silence for a few minutes and Addison scrunches her nose in a pout as Mark quietly laughs when she burns her tongue.
“You get to start,” she smiles at him.
“Why do I have to start?”
Laughing, Addison pushes her hair out of her face. “You’re the guy.”
He nods, knowing he can’t get around that logic. “What do you want to know?”
“How did you end up with a kid?” Her lips curl in an admiring smile, approving of the way that he’s grown up.
He knows that Addison isn’t asking him for the date, time and position that they forgot the condom or the day Izzie forgot to take her pill so takes a breath to gather himself and then launches into the saga.
He smartly decides not to draw parallels between Addison and Izzie. Comfort when the person they thought they loved refused to love them back, an incident in an on-call room. Mark had begun to think it was his curse. Find a nice girl, learn that nice girl loves someone else, comfort nice girl because the someone else is an idiot, fall into bed with nice girl, get nice girl pregnant.
Knowing that Addison knows about the George thing, he doesn’t bother with background information. “Once George failed out of the program and officially left, she didn’t see him as much and when she did Callie was always with him. She eventually gave up and one day I found her crying in an on call room and gave her a hug. It was just sex, nothing else. We were exclusive for about a year. She asked for it, for her own sanity,” he smiles as Addison nods in understanding. “And then she got pregnant. We made it work pretty well; got married when Kelly was three. Partly a promise that I wouldn’t run off, partly because it made sense, and...” he trails off, not knowing how to finish that sentence.
Addison knows that Mark Sloan would be the last man to cut and run when there’s a child in the picture and a woman he genuinely cares for. She smiles at the image of Isobel Stevens being a mother. It’s a perfect fit and she’s certain that Kelly has a better chance at growing up relatively unscathed (even now without her mother) than any child she and Mark would’ve had then. “Were you happy?” Hearing the apprehension in his voice, Addison automatically senses that he’s worried about talking about another woman with her and she wants him to know that it’s okay that he moved on after she cruelly used him and disappeared.
“Yeah. I was.” He smiles softly and genuinely. They were happy together and good together. Maybe not great together and certainly not perfect and they weren’t the kind of love that a true marriage should be based on, but there was some kind of love involved. “Three years ago she was driving home in a thunderstorm. A bridge flooded and trapped her car against the guardrail.” Getting the phone call that she was in an accident terrified him and listening to one of his friends tell him she died was even worse and it isn’t a night he enjoys reliving at all. He ends it there and pauses for a few seconds to watch her face before saying “your turn.”
“My turn to explain how I ended up with a kid?”
“You bet.” He grins at her, glad that the pressure is off of him.
Addison nods into her empty cup. It was a hard road getting there and Lily is, literally, the ‘one last try’ in ‘one last try because I don’t think I can handle this any more.’ She never wanted more than one, but she always puts great effort into making sure that she isn’t going to screw up with Lily because there isn’t an opportunity for another chance. “I’ve always wanted kids. I mean, I wasn’t ready before and then that was a bad situation but I’ve wanted them. And one day it hit me that I was running out of time. Naomi’s a fertility specialist - that’s why I went to LA.”
Mark nods. She never told him why she went, except to say that she needed a bit of a break and some room to breathe and now he understands why she didn’t tell him the truth.
“She said I was out of time.” Her memory takes a brief trip back to that elevator with her knees tucked to her chest, trying to pull herself together enough to get back to Naomi’s house. “But you know how people just know stuff? It was still in me. So. Two years of nothing, but then.”
“And now there’s a mini-Addison running around the streets of New York.”
“She’s actually taller than me.” Addison’s quick to point this out to anyone who mentions it. “God. It’s completely insane,” she laughs at herself. Thoroughly glad she took a sabbatical from work while she was pregnant and for the first three years of her daughter’s life, she has no idea how she would have managed it otherwise.
Mark chuckles, remembering how hard and sometimes frustrating it is with Kelly, and there were two of them raising her for most of it so far. He likes to think that he’s done a good job of getting her from thirteen to sixteen on his own without too much damage, but some days he isn’t sure. And from the unfocused gaze in Addison’s eyes, he can tell that she has had the same doubts every day since her daughter was born. “Well, it is entirely your fault.”
She lightly kicks him under the table and makes a protesting face that makes him laugh instead of apologize. Joining in on his laughter, she simply shakes her head. It’s one of the few times in her life she’s willing to have something be entirely her fault; she’ll willingly take responsibility for her daughter. She plays with her necklace and watches him as their laughter calms and wonders if there’s anything to this. If they’ll just be friends (because she can’t imagine not seeing him again - outside school events - now that she knows he’s here) or if it’ll be something more.
He’s wondering the same thing but knows that there’s no room to screw up this time no matter which way they go. Their daughters aren’t little, it isn’t as though the two of them having a fall out will affect their friendship too much. But they’re getting older and it’s likely the last best shot both of them will have. And the moment he saw her that afternoon, he knew that she’s the one he’s supposed to be with. Whether she’s his closest friend or the love of his life, he’s supposed to be with her.
Mark checks the clock on the wall over Addison’s shoulder. “You want to grab dinner?”
--
“Well then,” Lily smirks as her mother comes home after eleven. She pushes away the judges’ comments from earlier in the day and turns around to look at Addison.
“Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere?” Addison raises an eyebrow in confusion, remembering that Mark said something about a party, and hangs up her coat.
She sighs heavily. “It got busted before we got there. You think in Chelsea they’d let a bunch of high school kids have a celebration party but no.”
“Who the hell lives in Chelsea?” She pours herself a glass of water and then one for Lily when she motions that she’d like one too and falls into the chair across the table from her daughter.
“John has two daddies. Thanks.” Lily drinks most of it in one go, her throat’s sore from yelling for most of the morning during a last minute practice. “So,” she starts, matter-of-factly. “How was dinner?” She looks over the rim of her glasses at her mother like her mother does to her every time she comes home from a date. Payback.
Addison wonders if this is how it feels to be her daughter at times and solemnly swears to give it up. “It was...good.” She smiles. They made a pact not to tell their daughters that they knew each other before. They’re certain it’ll come out at some point, someone will say something about medical school or Seattle and their cover will blow, but for the moment they choose to let their kids feel like they did really well. “Don’t give me that look,” she whines. “Yes,” she throws up her hands in embarrassed defeat and slumps down against the back of the chair a little red in the face. “I’m seeing him again.”
“You’re welcome.”
Addison simply shakes her head and can’t help but give the girl credit. Taking note of what Lily was reading, she takes on a Mom Tone and Look. “Okay. I was a band geek in high school. The kind of band geek like that trumpet player you keep making fun of and the kind of band geek who sat at home after a competition and reviewed every note and step. So, put away the judges’ notes and go out.”
“You’re telling me to go out.”
“I’m not telling you to get phenomenally drunk and participate in a cocaine-induced raging orgy. But it’s Saturday night, you guys just won state for the third year in a row, go out.”
“You were waiting to use that orgy line, weren’t you?”
Addison sighs and props her chin on her palm and smiles a little. “Yeah, I was.”
“Thought so.”
--
“You’re home late.” Kelly hits pause on her video game and looks up at Mark.
“You’re home.” He blinks. He likes knowing where she is, but he distinctly remembers something about probably being home in the morning.
She quickly saves the game and the turns off the television and hops up onto a chair. “Your reason’s probably better than mine.”
Mark drops onto the couch next to her chair. “Mine doesn’t involve the cops.”
“Dad. Please don’t make me play Twenty Questions.”
“Kelly,” he sits up and smiles at her, “she’s good. You did good, kid.”
“Can I dress you for your first official date?” She flashes him a goofy wide grin that she got entirely from her mother.
“I am perfectly capable of dressing myself, Kelly.” He smiles back despite his words.
She looks at him and crosses her arms. “No, actually, you’re not. Blue scrubs day after day do not a fashionable man make.”
His clothes were perfectly fine the last time he dated Addison and for the entire time he was married to Izzie so he doesn’t see what the big problem is. “Fine,” he gives in to his daughter’s blue eyes and hopeful smile like he always does. “You can dress me.” He pauses. “Kel, I know that you’re still not quite solid with New York, but find someone and go out.”
“Trying to get rid of me?” Kelly teases her dad with a grin. “As it’s eleven-thirty and everything for people under eighteen closes at midnight, I’m staying in.” She smiles, recognizing the look in Mark’s eyes that says he wants to hang out with her but doesn’t want to sound overbearingly paternal. “Want to do anything?”
He grins. “You owe me a game of pool.”
She gracefully falls out of the chair and runs her fingers through her hair as she stands. “You’re on.”
--
It’s three dates before they kiss.
With his hand on her lower back, he gently guides her toward him. When he looks at her for a sign that says she’d like a good night kiss in addition to the hug, she touches her lips to his. Their eyes close and they hold steady except for Addison reaching up to circle her arms around his neck. Finally breaking the simple kiss, Mark leans his forehead against hers and wraps both arms around her back, holding her to him.
“I’m not going to hurt you again, Addison,” he promises, mistaking her tension for hesitation.
She smiles and looks up at him, gently shaking her hair out of her face. “I wasn’t worried about that.”
Mark smiles back but doesn’t miss her eyes glittering with a few tears. “Then what is it?”
“Me being stupid,” she laughs lightly. “I really, really, want to pull you into bed right now - two dates ago, actually - but I think I need us to go slow on this.” It’s idiotic and she knows it. She knows that he’s grown and matured and that there’s no way he could - or would - hurt her again, but that nagging part of her that didn’t manage to forget about him or how he was with her twenty years ago won’t let her take that leap of blind faith.
He nods and softly kisses her again. “Okay. But,” he tucks a piece of hair out of her face for her, “Kelly’s out until later if you want to come back and...”
“Cuddle?” Addison supplies the word for him and smiles widely, laughing as she sees his face go red. “Yeah, I’d like that,” she answers.
His apartment isn’t anything like his old one. It’s bigger and more a place to live than just a place to sleep and Addison supposes that the change makes sense but it’s still not what she’s used to even if it’s what she expected. She smiles when sees hint of the futon couch in another room, amazed that it hasn’t fallen apart yet. Mark leads her to a very comfortable-looking couch and motions for her to pick out a movie while he fixes after-dinner glasses of wine.
“Seriously?” He hands her a glass and raises an eyebrow at the choice of Sleepless in Seattle.
“You would prefer Breakfast at Tiffany’s?” Addison smiles and tugs him onto the couch with her. She likes that he was once married and has a daughter because it means that his movie collection has expanded beyond the Die Hard and Mission Impossible series’, The Bourne [noun] and documentaries on The Clash. She cuddles into his side and sighs happily when his arm immediately comes up to circle around her.
It isn’t long before Mark notices that her breathing has steadied and her eyes have fallen shut. She claims she’s awake when he nudges her a little but she’s back asleep in minutes. He watches the rest of the movie on his own because he can’t bear to move her when she looks that peaceful and he can’t help the small smile on his face as Sam talks about how much he loves his wife. He looks down at Addison and brushes a few stray red hairs out of her face.
As close as he and Izzie were, there was never that extra spark. There was never the extra energy that just made life a little easier simply by having her in the room. And he’s overjoyed to feel that it hasn’t disappeared over the years with Addison.
“...’m awake,” she mumbles as he shifts around to turn off the television and a few lights. Contradicting her words, she curls up on the couch in the space he vacated and tugs a blanket over her.
Mark crouches down in front of her and cups her cheek, smiling. “You don’t have a curfew. You’re staying here.”
Addison nods and doesn’t put up much of a fight when he slips his arms around her and lifts her up to carry her to his bedroom. He finds her some spare clothes to sleep in and when he comes back from brushing his teeth, he sees Addison hanging up her cell phone.
“I don’t have a curfew,” she yawns and shrinks into his shirt, “but I do have a daughter.” She smiles sleepily.
“Oh,” he mutters, remembering that he too has a daughter, one who has another hour until curfew and that he always, always, stays up until she comes home.
Addison smiles at him and kisses his cheek. “Stay up for her. I’ll be okay.”
“Yeah?” He begins to pull down the covers for her and helps her snuggle under the blankets.
She opens her eyes fully and rolls onto her back so she’s looking straight up at him. “Mark, she’s your kid. She comes first.”
Mark nods and kisses her quickly and sweetly and tucks the covers in around her, wishing her sweet dreams before kissing her once more and slipping out, leaving the room in darkness behind him. It’s only twenty minutes longer before Kelly comes home, so exhausted that she barely manages to eke out a greeting before disappearing into her room to fall right into bed. He intends to tell her that Addison is staying over because it’s the polite thing to do, but it looks like the exhaustion isn’t necessarily the best kind of exhaustion so he simply gives her a hug and lets her go to sleep.
Addison is fast asleep when he comes to join her in bed but she responds immediately to his presence and rolls over, cuddling into his chest as he puts his arms around her. Though he wants to stay awake longer and enjoy having her in his arms again, breathing in her scent and feeling her breathe, his eyes start to close and he gives in, quietly drifting off to sleep.
part two