A Posteriori
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Title: A Posteriori :: Dreaming of Andromeda [3/12]
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Not a whole lot happens in this one, actually. An anti-climatic birth at the beginning of August, a promise to not dress up said infant for Halloween, women fawning over newborns at Thanksgiving while Mark gets advice, Addison has an interesting moment with her mother at Christmas.
A Posteriori :: Eppur Si Muove
A Posteriori :: Feel Me Heaven
“Boy.” Addison guesses on the way to her appointment. The unanimous decision to discover the gender of their baby has led to a competition.
“Girl,” Mark counters confidently.
“Well,” she says smartly, “one of us is right.”
As he pulls into a parking spot, he rolls his eyes. “This isn’t fair, you know.”
“What’s not fair?” She lets him be masculine and open the door for her and help her out though she’s still completely capable of doing it herself.
“You see pregnant women every day. Don’t you have an idea of who’s carrying what by now?”
She looks at him sideways as the elevator doors close. “No. But I can definitely tell you that I’m only carrying one.”
--
Driving to work - twenty minutes late for the third day in a row - Mark realizes that he had no idea a sex drive could be that high that constantly. Not that he’s complaining by any means; he rather likes it and if he thought she was easy to get off before, he can have her writhing with just one finger in a matter of seconds now. There are still moments when he thinks that his sex drive is abnormally high, but then she covertly drags him into an on call room or her office and all it takes is one look from her to know what she wants. During the day he pleasures her with his tongue and fingers, leaving the sex for when they have a comfortable bed.
And then it shuts off as soon as it turned on and all she really wants is for him to hold her and reassure her that she is, in fact, absolutely beautiful and not, indeed, fat. He’s more than happy with the new situation because he’s become one of those completely whipped men who has no will of his own (and, because he’s dangerously head over heels in love with her, he somehow doesn’t find fault in that) and he’s okay with taking fantastically freezing showers. He silences her before she can finish giving him permission to do whatever he needs to do; he says he’d rather wait for her.
“Hey.” Mark shoots a concerned look at her when she walks in the door a little later than he had thought she would be home and looking a lot more exhausted than he would like.
“I need to be unconscious,” she mumbles as she kicks off her shoes and somehow manages to hang her coat up on the first try with her eyes closed.
“No,” he says softly, elongating the word, and catches her in a hug before she moves from her spot by the door. “You need to eat. You need to admit that I’m right about you going on maternity leave since you’re due in a month and change. And then you can be unconscious.”
Addison sighs and relaxes into his embrace and closes her eyes as their son kicks and reminds her of his presence. “Deal.” She lifts her head from his shoulder. “I only said that because I want to go to bed, not because I admit that you’re right.”
Rolling his eyes, Mark turns and wraps one arm around her waist and guides her into the kitchen. “I’ll let you pretend.”
--
After twenty-two hours of labor (nine of them spent watching a Jeopardy marathon on a channel neither Addison nor Mark nor any of the nurses ever knew existed) and with one final push and earsplitting scream from his mother, Noah Alexander Montgomery-Sloan makes his entrance into the world a few minutes before sunrise. Though exhausted and in pain and wanting to go lie down in a quiet, dark and cool room, Addison gets a second wind as she opens her eyes to see her son being placed in her arms.
The rest of the room falls away and it’s simply the three of them: mother, father and son. None of them can figure out who to look at. Proud parents try to steal glances at each other and still focus on their son, and the newborn can’t decide which parent is more interesting but instinct tells him to settle his gaze on his mother. She smiles down at him and caresses his cheek with her thumb and leans her head on Mark’s shoulder.
“There had to have been a better way,” she winces when she finally makes her slow way to their bed after introducing Noah to his nursery and deciding to let him sleep in their room for the night.
Mark helps her in and tucks the covers around her before slipping in next to her. He simply tugs her toward him without saying anything, knowing that it’s a rhetorical statement and that she probably doesn’t want to be reminded of the idiocy of not taking the epidural. Somewhere around hour ten, he asked her why she refused it and she told him sadly that because she knew this was going to be their only she wanted to experience it all. Unable to argue with that logic, he kissed her forehead and hugged her and offered her his other hand.
“Congratulations, Addie,” he whispers. The applause isn’t just for making it through the pregnancy and giving birth to a tiny life with incredibly healthy lungs, it’s also for the getting the dream he knew she wanted so badly. As he drifts off to sleep and murmurs that he loves her and hears it in return, he realizes that a tiny part of his happiness isn’t because of his son. It’s because the love of his life is now living her dream.
--
Knowing that it’s near naptime for Noah and definitely naptime for Addison, Mark quietly unlocks the front door and winces when it squeaks before it catches and closes. Instead of properly untying his sneakers like normal, he toes them off (but lines them up next to the three pairs of shoes Addison hasn’t returned to their closet yet) and hangs up his leather jacket above them. He starts to head upstairs to crawl into bed with her, to dive under the blankets because somehow it isn’t a whole lot warmer inside than it is outside, and gently loop his arm around her waist and hold her while she sleeps. But a cooing noise from the couch makes him pause and turn and smile widely as his son rolls over in his mother’s tight and sleepy embrace to smile toothlessly at him.
Mark watches from the hallway for a while, admiring the image of his fiancée asleep on her side with her arm tucked around their grinning child. When Noah starts to blow spit bubbles, Mark has to hold back a laugh to keep from waking Addison and he silently tiptoes to the top drawer of the shiny black chest in the living room where he knows they’ve stashed a camera. Kneeling on the soft carpet in front of the couch, he quickly snaps a few pictures (thankful that they’ve turned off the annoying beeps and clicks) and then sets the camera on the coffee table and sits down in front of the two of them on the floor.
Noah reaches out to him and tries to wiggle out of Addison’s hug to get to his father and, when he can’t, looks like he’s about to cry. Mark frantically gently lifts Addison’s arm with one hand and tucks the other around his son and cuddles the small boy against his chest, relieved that the pout has turned into an energetic smile. Addison murmurs in her sleep and shifts against the pillows, red hair spilling into her face. Mark stands up and brushes his fingers against her cheek to move the hair away. He kisses her temple and whispers for her to go back to sleep and pulls the blanket from the back of the couch over her, gently tucking it around her.
“What do you think, buddy? Want to go to the park?” It’s a little bit chilly at the end of October (and Mark sincerely hopes that Addison won’t even consider dressing Noah up in some ridiculous costume next weekend for Halloween) but still nice enough and hats and gloves and warm coats have already been bought for just this purpose. Noah looks awake enough and Mark’s been inside the hospital since six in the morning and can’t stay indoors for much longer so he bundles up his son and finds the stroller. Remembering how paranoid Addison is and how she once panicked when she came back from the kitchen and Noah had rolled out of sight behind the couch, he quickly leaves her a note and sets it on the table in front of her and locks the door behind them.
It’s a short walk to Central Park and Mark takes his time listening to the leaves crunch under his feet and the wheels of the stroller and he smiles each time he hears Noah make an enthusiastic noise at small dogs or birds that hop on the ground next to him. He makes his slow way down a path to a vacant park bench by a lake, navigating around runners and bikers and roller bladers trying to get in the last outdoor miles of the season, and sits down. Noah reaches for him from the stroller and Mark carefully picks him up and sets him on his lap, making sure that his jacket is securely bundled around him.
“I appreciate that,” an older woman’s voice jogs Mark out of focusing on a three-month old Noah teasing a sparrow at the other end of the bench.
“Hm?”
She smiles. “A father spending time with his son at an early age instead of going right back to work and letting the mother do all the early parenting. It’s a rare sight these days.”
Mark smiles in return. “I wouldn’t miss this.”
She nods, acknowledging the truth of his words and that he isn’t out here just because he was kicked out of the house so the child’s mother could get some decent sleep. “Thank you,” she smiles again. “Means there’s some hope left. Have a good day.”
“You too.”
Mark watches her continue on her path and wonders what she meant or what she was thinking but decides that it was definitely a compliment and reminds himself that as soon as Noah is big enough and old enough to know how to react when things are moving toward him, he’s buying him a small baseball glove.
--
Addison smiles and turns down the corner of the page in her book when she hears the front door unlock and some muffled G-rated swearing as Mark tries to navigate a child, a set of keys and a stroller inside the door. A cold gust of air follows them in and she makes a mental note to herself to dig out the warm and comfy winter blankets sometime soon because it’s been predicted to be a chilly winter. She takes Noah out of Mark’s arms and nudges the stroller to the side with her foot and unbuttons her son’s warm fuzzy dark green jacket with one hand as Mark wiggles out of his own jacket and kicks himself for not wearing gloves.
“Cold enough?” She kisses his cheek.
“I heard people talking. Snow on Halloween.”
Having grown up in New England, snow on Halloween is no strange idea to Addison and she remembers trekking through a full foot of snow in a princess costume one year. “I’ve told you, you can stop worrying. I’m not one of those people who dress their kid up in a goofy mouse costume or something.” She blows a stray lock of hair out of her eyes and it falls right back down where it was and she makes a face and glares at it. “I think I’d need to scrapbook. And I just don’t understand that.”
“Didn’t Annie tell you that you’d understand once you had a kid?”
“Clearly she was mistaken.” Addison laughs, remembering all the advice Derek’s mother gave the two of them when she found out her two favorite non-children were expecting a child. “Oh, that reminds me. She called while you were out. We’re invited for Thanksgiving. She wants to see her grandson.”
Mark grins and shakes his head. “I’ve never been able to tell that woman no unless I had a really...” he catches himself from saying damn and rolls his eyes, “good excuse.”
“Me neither. And Derek isn’t going to be there. Apparently Meredith’s dad stopped being a jerk and invited her and he’s going along for moral support.” She knows that even though the three of them have made up and become civil again, large family gatherings with the promise of alcohol and certain small now-instinctive mannerisms aren’t anyone’s idea of a good place for the three of them to be at the same time.
He smiles and tickles Noah’s stomach just enough so he squirms happily in his mother’s arms. “Baby’s first road trip.”
“Oh, you did not just...”
“You got him a shirt that said ‘Baby’s First Halloween.’”
--
As soon as they walk in the door of the Shepherd home, Mark receives quick hugs from all of the sisters and then they immediately forget about him, choosing to fawn over Addison and Noah instead. He feels someone tug on his arm and he turns to see a smiling Annie Shepherd, the woman who raised him as one of her own. She pulls him into a warm and welcoming hug. It took her a year to forgive him but once she did, it was if he never seduced her son’s wife.
“Congratulations, kid.” Annie smiles softly, proud of him. Though she never once forgot that Mark had his own parents and his own family, she never treated him as anything other than her own blood relative. “You’re gonna be a good one,” she assures him. Mark is a fantastic liar but she’s always seen right through any outward façade of being okay or elaborate tale of why he didn’t get his algebra homework done.
“How do you know?” He whispers a little shakily, oblivious to the fact that she’s slowly walked them away from the gaggle of cooing women in the living room.
She steps back and tips up his chin and looks firmly into his eyes. “Because I know the man that raised you. And I know how much you looked up to him.”
Mark lets out a deep breath. “I’m never...”
“No,” she agrees. “You’re not going to be him. But I know you and that you don’t half-ass anything. So, you be the best that you can be. And if you screw up every so often, you screw up. It happens. God knows, none of us are perfect. It’s rarely a big deal; kids are pretty resilient.”
He nods understandingly. “Okay.”
“Now. When the hell are you two getting married?”
--
“What are you doing up?” Addison looks up from walking around the first floor trying to calm Noah back into sleeping.
“Same reason you are. Talk to my child.” Ellen Montgomery gently takes Noah from Addison’s arms and gently rocks him as she sits down on the couch. She pats the seat next to her and shoots Addison a look. “Sit. I don’t hit cushions for no reason.”
Addison smiles and sits down next to her mother and stares at the Christmas tree, bright colored wrapping paper and ribbons hiding presents haphazardly stacked under the gargantuan Balsam pine in the front hall. She tucks her feet under her and grabs a blanket and lightly covers her and her mother’s lap with it. They sit in silence for a while and watch the snow fall outside and Addison knows that somehow she’ll end up in a snowball fight tomorrow teamed with her siblings against the collection of significant others.
“You know I don’t approve of the way you’ve handled your relationships.” Ellen takes no notice of Addison’s quiet I know. “I thought you jumped in with Derek too quickly and that there were better ways of dealing with his absence. Sleeping with Mark was not something I ever expected you to do and, to my knowledge, you’re the only Montgomery woman commit adultery. I thought you had truly gone insane when you told me you two were together and engaged given what I knew about him. And when you told me you were pregnant that quickly, I sort of wondered what kind of child I raised. But,” she says and rests a comforting hand on Addison’s arm, “I’m happy for you.”
“What?” Addison raises her eyebrow, confused. She’s close with her mother but sometimes random outbursts of disappointment come from nowhere only to be countered by something positive. She’s always hated it and rarely understands what’s going on.
“You’re the happiest I’ve ever seen you, Addie. I wish that you hadn’t had to go through all of that to get here and that doesn’t change that I think you could’ve handled Derek and Mark differently, but I’m happy for you.” She kisses Addison’s forehead. “And I’m proud of you, girl.”
Addison smiles widely at receiving the highest compliment possible from her mother and nestles her head on her shoulder, gently stroking Noah’s cheek. “Thank you.”
--
“So,” Addison sidles up next to Mark in the kitchen after putting a sleepy six-month old Noah to bed. She slips her arms around his waist and hugs him from behind; she sets her chin on his shoulder and watches him scrub at a lasagna dish. “You know how I had that thing about Cherry Garcia ice cream and Dave’s Insanity hot sauce while I was pregnant with Noah?”
Mark makes a face and remembers all the times that he held back a comment about that maybe being the reason behind the nausea. “I still can’t touch that stuff.”
“Good,” she whispers seductively in his ear. “Because when you restock the house with it tomorrow morning, there will be more for me.”
His eyes widen as it hits him. “You’re pregnant?” He turns around just in time to see her nod and smile and he picks her up and twirls her around the kitchen, whispering a repeated I love you into her neck until she squeals giddily for him to put her down. He silences any words she could possibly say with a kiss, deep and loving until they need to pull apart for air. “This is...insane,” he says, his smile and sparkling eyes telling her that it’s the good kind of insane.
“I know,” she agrees happily. She spent most of the trying to convince herself that, somehow, it made sense. They were lucky with Noah and she can’t even imagine the statistical odds of her other good egg making its way forward in time. “But I’m okay with insane if it’s with you.” She immediately cringes at herself for the cheesy comment.
Mark laughs and rests his forehead on her shoulder. “That was bad.”
She winces and giggles, looping her arms around his back in a hug. “I know, I’m sorry. It just came out. Forgive me?” They may be that couple, but they aren’t That couple.
“Always.”
A Posteriori :: Dancing with Mephisto
Title: A Posteriori :: Dreaming of Andromeda [3/12]
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Not a whole lot happens in this one, actually. An anti-climatic birth at the beginning of August, a promise to not dress up said infant for Halloween, women fawning over newborns at Thanksgiving while Mark gets advice, Addison has an interesting moment with her mother at Christmas.
A Posteriori :: Eppur Si Muove
A Posteriori :: Feel Me Heaven
“Boy.” Addison guesses on the way to her appointment. The unanimous decision to discover the gender of their baby has led to a competition.
“Girl,” Mark counters confidently.
“Well,” she says smartly, “one of us is right.”
As he pulls into a parking spot, he rolls his eyes. “This isn’t fair, you know.”
“What’s not fair?” She lets him be masculine and open the door for her and help her out though she’s still completely capable of doing it herself.
“You see pregnant women every day. Don’t you have an idea of who’s carrying what by now?”
She looks at him sideways as the elevator doors close. “No. But I can definitely tell you that I’m only carrying one.”
--
Driving to work - twenty minutes late for the third day in a row - Mark realizes that he had no idea a sex drive could be that high that constantly. Not that he’s complaining by any means; he rather likes it and if he thought she was easy to get off before, he can have her writhing with just one finger in a matter of seconds now. There are still moments when he thinks that his sex drive is abnormally high, but then she covertly drags him into an on call room or her office and all it takes is one look from her to know what she wants. During the day he pleasures her with his tongue and fingers, leaving the sex for when they have a comfortable bed.
And then it shuts off as soon as it turned on and all she really wants is for him to hold her and reassure her that she is, in fact, absolutely beautiful and not, indeed, fat. He’s more than happy with the new situation because he’s become one of those completely whipped men who has no will of his own (and, because he’s dangerously head over heels in love with her, he somehow doesn’t find fault in that) and he’s okay with taking fantastically freezing showers. He silences her before she can finish giving him permission to do whatever he needs to do; he says he’d rather wait for her.
“Hey.” Mark shoots a concerned look at her when she walks in the door a little later than he had thought she would be home and looking a lot more exhausted than he would like.
“I need to be unconscious,” she mumbles as she kicks off her shoes and somehow manages to hang her coat up on the first try with her eyes closed.
“No,” he says softly, elongating the word, and catches her in a hug before she moves from her spot by the door. “You need to eat. You need to admit that I’m right about you going on maternity leave since you’re due in a month and change. And then you can be unconscious.”
Addison sighs and relaxes into his embrace and closes her eyes as their son kicks and reminds her of his presence. “Deal.” She lifts her head from his shoulder. “I only said that because I want to go to bed, not because I admit that you’re right.”
Rolling his eyes, Mark turns and wraps one arm around her waist and guides her into the kitchen. “I’ll let you pretend.”
--
After twenty-two hours of labor (nine of them spent watching a Jeopardy marathon on a channel neither Addison nor Mark nor any of the nurses ever knew existed) and with one final push and earsplitting scream from his mother, Noah Alexander Montgomery-Sloan makes his entrance into the world a few minutes before sunrise. Though exhausted and in pain and wanting to go lie down in a quiet, dark and cool room, Addison gets a second wind as she opens her eyes to see her son being placed in her arms.
The rest of the room falls away and it’s simply the three of them: mother, father and son. None of them can figure out who to look at. Proud parents try to steal glances at each other and still focus on their son, and the newborn can’t decide which parent is more interesting but instinct tells him to settle his gaze on his mother. She smiles down at him and caresses his cheek with her thumb and leans her head on Mark’s shoulder.
“There had to have been a better way,” she winces when she finally makes her slow way to their bed after introducing Noah to his nursery and deciding to let him sleep in their room for the night.
Mark helps her in and tucks the covers around her before slipping in next to her. He simply tugs her toward him without saying anything, knowing that it’s a rhetorical statement and that she probably doesn’t want to be reminded of the idiocy of not taking the epidural. Somewhere around hour ten, he asked her why she refused it and she told him sadly that because she knew this was going to be their only she wanted to experience it all. Unable to argue with that logic, he kissed her forehead and hugged her and offered her his other hand.
“Congratulations, Addie,” he whispers. The applause isn’t just for making it through the pregnancy and giving birth to a tiny life with incredibly healthy lungs, it’s also for the getting the dream he knew she wanted so badly. As he drifts off to sleep and murmurs that he loves her and hears it in return, he realizes that a tiny part of his happiness isn’t because of his son. It’s because the love of his life is now living her dream.
--
Knowing that it’s near naptime for Noah and definitely naptime for Addison, Mark quietly unlocks the front door and winces when it squeaks before it catches and closes. Instead of properly untying his sneakers like normal, he toes them off (but lines them up next to the three pairs of shoes Addison hasn’t returned to their closet yet) and hangs up his leather jacket above them. He starts to head upstairs to crawl into bed with her, to dive under the blankets because somehow it isn’t a whole lot warmer inside than it is outside, and gently loop his arm around her waist and hold her while she sleeps. But a cooing noise from the couch makes him pause and turn and smile widely as his son rolls over in his mother’s tight and sleepy embrace to smile toothlessly at him.
Mark watches from the hallway for a while, admiring the image of his fiancée asleep on her side with her arm tucked around their grinning child. When Noah starts to blow spit bubbles, Mark has to hold back a laugh to keep from waking Addison and he silently tiptoes to the top drawer of the shiny black chest in the living room where he knows they’ve stashed a camera. Kneeling on the soft carpet in front of the couch, he quickly snaps a few pictures (thankful that they’ve turned off the annoying beeps and clicks) and then sets the camera on the coffee table and sits down in front of the two of them on the floor.
Noah reaches out to him and tries to wiggle out of Addison’s hug to get to his father and, when he can’t, looks like he’s about to cry. Mark frantically gently lifts Addison’s arm with one hand and tucks the other around his son and cuddles the small boy against his chest, relieved that the pout has turned into an energetic smile. Addison murmurs in her sleep and shifts against the pillows, red hair spilling into her face. Mark stands up and brushes his fingers against her cheek to move the hair away. He kisses her temple and whispers for her to go back to sleep and pulls the blanket from the back of the couch over her, gently tucking it around her.
“What do you think, buddy? Want to go to the park?” It’s a little bit chilly at the end of October (and Mark sincerely hopes that Addison won’t even consider dressing Noah up in some ridiculous costume next weekend for Halloween) but still nice enough and hats and gloves and warm coats have already been bought for just this purpose. Noah looks awake enough and Mark’s been inside the hospital since six in the morning and can’t stay indoors for much longer so he bundles up his son and finds the stroller. Remembering how paranoid Addison is and how she once panicked when she came back from the kitchen and Noah had rolled out of sight behind the couch, he quickly leaves her a note and sets it on the table in front of her and locks the door behind them.
It’s a short walk to Central Park and Mark takes his time listening to the leaves crunch under his feet and the wheels of the stroller and he smiles each time he hears Noah make an enthusiastic noise at small dogs or birds that hop on the ground next to him. He makes his slow way down a path to a vacant park bench by a lake, navigating around runners and bikers and roller bladers trying to get in the last outdoor miles of the season, and sits down. Noah reaches for him from the stroller and Mark carefully picks him up and sets him on his lap, making sure that his jacket is securely bundled around him.
“I appreciate that,” an older woman’s voice jogs Mark out of focusing on a three-month old Noah teasing a sparrow at the other end of the bench.
“Hm?”
She smiles. “A father spending time with his son at an early age instead of going right back to work and letting the mother do all the early parenting. It’s a rare sight these days.”
Mark smiles in return. “I wouldn’t miss this.”
She nods, acknowledging the truth of his words and that he isn’t out here just because he was kicked out of the house so the child’s mother could get some decent sleep. “Thank you,” she smiles again. “Means there’s some hope left. Have a good day.”
“You too.”
Mark watches her continue on her path and wonders what she meant or what she was thinking but decides that it was definitely a compliment and reminds himself that as soon as Noah is big enough and old enough to know how to react when things are moving toward him, he’s buying him a small baseball glove.
--
Addison smiles and turns down the corner of the page in her book when she hears the front door unlock and some muffled G-rated swearing as Mark tries to navigate a child, a set of keys and a stroller inside the door. A cold gust of air follows them in and she makes a mental note to herself to dig out the warm and comfy winter blankets sometime soon because it’s been predicted to be a chilly winter. She takes Noah out of Mark’s arms and nudges the stroller to the side with her foot and unbuttons her son’s warm fuzzy dark green jacket with one hand as Mark wiggles out of his own jacket and kicks himself for not wearing gloves.
“Cold enough?” She kisses his cheek.
“I heard people talking. Snow on Halloween.”
Having grown up in New England, snow on Halloween is no strange idea to Addison and she remembers trekking through a full foot of snow in a princess costume one year. “I’ve told you, you can stop worrying. I’m not one of those people who dress their kid up in a goofy mouse costume or something.” She blows a stray lock of hair out of her eyes and it falls right back down where it was and she makes a face and glares at it. “I think I’d need to scrapbook. And I just don’t understand that.”
“Didn’t Annie tell you that you’d understand once you had a kid?”
“Clearly she was mistaken.” Addison laughs, remembering all the advice Derek’s mother gave the two of them when she found out her two favorite non-children were expecting a child. “Oh, that reminds me. She called while you were out. We’re invited for Thanksgiving. She wants to see her grandson.”
Mark grins and shakes his head. “I’ve never been able to tell that woman no unless I had a really...” he catches himself from saying damn and rolls his eyes, “good excuse.”
“Me neither. And Derek isn’t going to be there. Apparently Meredith’s dad stopped being a jerk and invited her and he’s going along for moral support.” She knows that even though the three of them have made up and become civil again, large family gatherings with the promise of alcohol and certain small now-instinctive mannerisms aren’t anyone’s idea of a good place for the three of them to be at the same time.
He smiles and tickles Noah’s stomach just enough so he squirms happily in his mother’s arms. “Baby’s first road trip.”
“Oh, you did not just...”
“You got him a shirt that said ‘Baby’s First Halloween.’”
--
As soon as they walk in the door of the Shepherd home, Mark receives quick hugs from all of the sisters and then they immediately forget about him, choosing to fawn over Addison and Noah instead. He feels someone tug on his arm and he turns to see a smiling Annie Shepherd, the woman who raised him as one of her own. She pulls him into a warm and welcoming hug. It took her a year to forgive him but once she did, it was if he never seduced her son’s wife.
“Congratulations, kid.” Annie smiles softly, proud of him. Though she never once forgot that Mark had his own parents and his own family, she never treated him as anything other than her own blood relative. “You’re gonna be a good one,” she assures him. Mark is a fantastic liar but she’s always seen right through any outward façade of being okay or elaborate tale of why he didn’t get his algebra homework done.
“How do you know?” He whispers a little shakily, oblivious to the fact that she’s slowly walked them away from the gaggle of cooing women in the living room.
She steps back and tips up his chin and looks firmly into his eyes. “Because I know the man that raised you. And I know how much you looked up to him.”
Mark lets out a deep breath. “I’m never...”
“No,” she agrees. “You’re not going to be him. But I know you and that you don’t half-ass anything. So, you be the best that you can be. And if you screw up every so often, you screw up. It happens. God knows, none of us are perfect. It’s rarely a big deal; kids are pretty resilient.”
He nods understandingly. “Okay.”
“Now. When the hell are you two getting married?”
--
“What are you doing up?” Addison looks up from walking around the first floor trying to calm Noah back into sleeping.
“Same reason you are. Talk to my child.” Ellen Montgomery gently takes Noah from Addison’s arms and gently rocks him as she sits down on the couch. She pats the seat next to her and shoots Addison a look. “Sit. I don’t hit cushions for no reason.”
Addison smiles and sits down next to her mother and stares at the Christmas tree, bright colored wrapping paper and ribbons hiding presents haphazardly stacked under the gargantuan Balsam pine in the front hall. She tucks her feet under her and grabs a blanket and lightly covers her and her mother’s lap with it. They sit in silence for a while and watch the snow fall outside and Addison knows that somehow she’ll end up in a snowball fight tomorrow teamed with her siblings against the collection of significant others.
“You know I don’t approve of the way you’ve handled your relationships.” Ellen takes no notice of Addison’s quiet I know. “I thought you jumped in with Derek too quickly and that there were better ways of dealing with his absence. Sleeping with Mark was not something I ever expected you to do and, to my knowledge, you’re the only Montgomery woman commit adultery. I thought you had truly gone insane when you told me you two were together and engaged given what I knew about him. And when you told me you were pregnant that quickly, I sort of wondered what kind of child I raised. But,” she says and rests a comforting hand on Addison’s arm, “I’m happy for you.”
“What?” Addison raises her eyebrow, confused. She’s close with her mother but sometimes random outbursts of disappointment come from nowhere only to be countered by something positive. She’s always hated it and rarely understands what’s going on.
“You’re the happiest I’ve ever seen you, Addie. I wish that you hadn’t had to go through all of that to get here and that doesn’t change that I think you could’ve handled Derek and Mark differently, but I’m happy for you.” She kisses Addison’s forehead. “And I’m proud of you, girl.”
Addison smiles widely at receiving the highest compliment possible from her mother and nestles her head on her shoulder, gently stroking Noah’s cheek. “Thank you.”
--
“So,” Addison sidles up next to Mark in the kitchen after putting a sleepy six-month old Noah to bed. She slips her arms around his waist and hugs him from behind; she sets her chin on his shoulder and watches him scrub at a lasagna dish. “You know how I had that thing about Cherry Garcia ice cream and Dave’s Insanity hot sauce while I was pregnant with Noah?”
Mark makes a face and remembers all the times that he held back a comment about that maybe being the reason behind the nausea. “I still can’t touch that stuff.”
“Good,” she whispers seductively in his ear. “Because when you restock the house with it tomorrow morning, there will be more for me.”
His eyes widen as it hits him. “You’re pregnant?” He turns around just in time to see her nod and smile and he picks her up and twirls her around the kitchen, whispering a repeated I love you into her neck until she squeals giddily for him to put her down. He silences any words she could possibly say with a kiss, deep and loving until they need to pull apart for air. “This is...insane,” he says, his smile and sparkling eyes telling her that it’s the good kind of insane.
“I know,” she agrees happily. She spent most of the trying to convince herself that, somehow, it made sense. They were lucky with Noah and she can’t even imagine the statistical odds of her other good egg making its way forward in time. “But I’m okay with insane if it’s with you.” She immediately cringes at herself for the cheesy comment.
Mark laughs and rests his forehead on her shoulder. “That was bad.”
She winces and giggles, looping her arms around his back in a hug. “I know, I’m sorry. It just came out. Forgive me?” They may be that couple, but they aren’t That couple.
“Always.”
A Posteriori :: Dancing with Mephisto