A Posteriori
Title: A Posteriori :: Hello and Welcome [8/12]
Rating: R. Don’t tell me you really thought I was going to keep this family-friendly. But, I gotta tell ya: I felt really weird writing softcore porn in an airport. Really weird.
Summary: This is more a parent chapter than a family chapter because I miss them together and my Google searching skills have gradually dulled in my memory with my exodus from the organized education system. Addison has an anxiety attack over Oreos. Consequently, the boys become old enough to go to sleepover parties. Fighting and fluff and sex ensue. Then we skip a few months and then a year and a half because this is fic and I can do that.
Note: I had a massive headache last night and was exhausted from working four ten-hour days and being up since 5:00 and then flying so I didn’t get roaring drunk like I planned so consequently I wasn’t hungover and for some ungodly reason woke up at 7:38 and started this. I will, however, be sleeping off the rest of this weekend well into Tuesday.
A Posteriori :: Eppur Si Muove
A Posteriori :: Feel Me Heaven
A Posteriori :: Dreaming of Andromeda
A Posteriori :: Dancing With Mephisto
A Posteriori :: Northern Lights
A Posteriori :: Invisible Love
A Posteriori :: Message from Io
“What happened?” Mark breaks into a run as he watches his wife’s doctor, Becky Ward, walk out of a room at the end of the hallway.
“Breathe, Mark,” she reassures him. “She had an anxiety attack. We have her on ten milligrams of diazepam so she’s kinda doped up right now, but she’s breathing regularly, her heart’s back to normal and she’s calm.”
His eyebrows shoot up at the mention of the high dose and he shifts his eyes to look at the closed blinds out of concern. He sighs and turns back. “Any idea what caused it?”
Becky puts her hands on her hips and stares up at him with a look that clearly states that she thinks he’s a complete dumbass for needing to ask. “She’s juggling eight flaming swords, Mark. But the prom dress she’s doing it in is falling apart.”
“What?”
“She has three kids. One of them has leukemia. As such, if she isn’t careful, the other two will be pushed to the side. She has you, who she doesn’t want to push to the side either. She has her own emotions which she isn’t willing to dump on you because she thinks you have enough to worry about without wondering when she’s going to crack. And she has work.” She holds up a finger and shakes it a little when he opens his mouth to speak. “She looks like she’s holding it together just fine - that’s the prom dress. But people who are doing just fine? They don’t have anxiety attacks because there wasn’t enough milk left in the glass to dunk the last Oreo in. That’s the falling apart bit.”
Mark leans the side of his head against the wall. “I should have...”
“No, you shouldn’t have. Your wife is a phenomenal actress and don’t give me this shit about you’re her husband, you love her, you’re supposed to be paying attention and noticing these things and you think it’s making you turn into Derek. You’re not Derek and thank God for that. But you’re allowed to be a little distracted. You’re allowed to not see things. You have the same swords she does.” She puts her hand on his arm when he sighs and her expression softens out of a lecture. “When was the last time you and Addison had sex?”
His eyes spring open. “What the hell kind of question is that?”
“A real one and I’m asking it. As her doctor and her friend. Answer it.” She shakes her head; he’s taking far too long to answer. “Spend some real time together. No kids. No kid talk. No hospital talk. Just you two. Before your kids become to you and her what work was to her and Derek.”
“I’m not...”
“Look, I know the analogy isn’t perfect. But the two of you are rightfully terrified for Kylie and are doing your damndest to pay equal attention to Noah and Dylan and somehow in the process you’re beginning to forget the emotional and physical stuff of being married. Happy emotional stuff.” Seeing him think and have no response, she continues. “You guys used to be disgustingly cute and happy. I don’t know what goes on at home, but here you’re just kind of...stagnant.”
“Kylie...”
She cuts him off, determined to not let him finish any sentence. “Yes. But do you really think that she wants both of you wandering around with that damn Ziggy rain cloud over your head? Do you really think that’s going to help her? Or your sons?”
Mark hears the implied or you quite loud in his head and lets out a deep heavy breath and moves away from the completely valid point he doesn’t want to admit someone had to make. “She had an anxiety attack over Oreos?”
“Not the root cause, Mark.” Becky pats his shoulder as she brushes past him.
“Hi,” Addison says softly and a little dreamily as Mark shuts the door to her room behind him.
“I heard you had a little freak out.”
She shrugs and picks at the white sheet under her. “Yeah. Big huge monumental freak out is more like it.”
He holds out his hand. “Come on.”
Addison stands up and her eyes go wide at the sudden change of altitude and she holds onto the bed for support until the room goes straight again. “Where are we going?” She clasps his hand, comforted by the solid grasp.
“Home.”
“But...”
“She’ll be okay. And that sleepover birthday party they weren’t ‘old enough’ to go to when they asked this morning? Officially old enough as of five minutes ago.”
“Mark.” She gives him the same look she gives Dylan when steals a cookie from Noah’s plate when he isn’t looking. Unfortunately, the drugs make her look more goofy than serious.
“You’re stoned; you don’t get a vote.” He smiles at her and tugs her into an embrace and kisses her hair.
“I am not.”
--
Mark smiles as he closes the door behind him and steps into a silent house. Cashing in a favor from three years ago, he managed to buy them an additional night alone. Addison’s just-in-case prescription in hand, he toes off his shoes and quietly turns out lights as he makes his way upstairs. He passes the open window in the upstairs hall and shivers a little because it’s getting a bit too cold for open windows but Addison has a thing for breathing fresh air until it starts snowing. Setting the translucent amber bottle on the bathroom counter, Mark quickly changes into a pair of sweatpants and heads back into the bedroom to pull the curtains against the brilliance of the setting sun and curl under the warm covers (while he doesn’t see the logic in having windows open and sleeping under a down comforter, he lets it go because she’s cute when she’s snuggled deep and tight into a mess of blankets and pillows) with his wife.
“I miss you,” she whispers after several minutes of pretending to be asleep. She still feels a little loopy and out of it and she isn’t quite in her own mind enough to silence things she would normally censor.
Mark nods against her shoulder and kisses the nape of her neck through her hair. “I miss you too,” he breathes, tightening his arm around her. “Oh,” he whispers when he feels her immediately start to cry without even a split second of tension to hold it back. “Come here, Addie.” He gently rolls her over in his arms and holds her closely while she silently sobs into his chest. It scares him - both for her sake and his - that she’s crying like this. She’s never held onto him this tightly for this long, her tears have never been so consistently steady. It scares him just how much she’s been holding back and it worries him just how much he didn’t notice. While Becky is right and Addison is a pro at convincing absolutely everyone that she’s completely fine, he still thinks that he should have seen something.
“Now you’re all wet,” she apologizes and rubs at her eyes with her fists.
He knows it’s inappropriate, but he can’t help but chuckle; she was given a lighter dose before she left the hospital to make sure the calmness stays and the side effects are still present. “It’s okay,” he kisses her nose and wraps his arms lovingly around her.
“I want her to get better. And it’s just...I want it to be instinct to pay attention to them, to hug them, I don’t want to be reading them a story and thinking about the nights that I’m not reading to her. I don’t want to have to remember to pay attention to my kids. I want it to just happen. And,” she sniffles, “I miss you. I miss my husband. I miss laughing without feeling guilty. Trying to be quiet while you tickle me until I fall off the bed. I miss sex and I’m tired of crying all the time.”
Mark sighs heavily and blinks back a few tears of his own; at some level, he knows she’s crying more than she lets on: sometimes he’ll see her gazing off with a sad look on her face and sometimes she’ll write sniffles off to seasonal allergies or red eyes to contacts but no matter how hard he’s pushed her, she still says she’s okay and he’s just learned to drop it. “Addison, you have no idea how good you are at making everyone think that you’re completely okay inside. You drop what you think is a hint and I think it’s a bad day because I don’t know any better. And because I don’t know any better, I just react to what you’re doing.” He slides down a little so he’s at eye level with her. “You’re not supposed to be one hundred percent okay, Ads. Talk to me. Okay?” He frowns when she sniffles and zones out staring at his chest for a moment. “Stay with me, here.”
She shakes her head and blinks back to the conversation. “Yeah, okay. Sorry, I’m...”
“I know. Oreos and not enough milk.”
Addison cringes. “She told you?”
Mark nods and smiles and drops the subject, knowing that it’s far more than an afternoon snack of milk and cookies and he shouldn’t tease her for it even though he wants to. He kisses her cheek and hugs her. “Go back to sleep, Addie.”
--
“Because you don’t need any more on your mind. You don’t need to worry about me, too!”
“You know what? You’re right. I don’t need any more on my mind. So why don’t you just stay completely silent until something ridiculous sends you flying off the edge into hyperventilating panic and you need three people and high doses of drugs to calm you down. Because then I won’t worry at all.”
She opens her mouth to retaliate but all she can come up with is a comment about sarcasm not helping the situation so she simply doesn’t say anything. Sarcasm or not, he has a point and she hates it when that happens. “Mark, I...” she nervously tucks her hair behind her hair.
“I get that the mom thing and the doctor thing make you think that you’re supposed to take care of everyone. And some days, that’s really cute and endearing and I love that about you. But other days, it’s a pain in the ass because you don’t let anyone take care of you. You’re way past the point where you can get away with the tough I-can-take-care-of-myself thing.”
“I can take care of myself.”
He crosses his arms. “Really.”
“Okay! So that was one time! I’m sorry!”
“You’ve always done this, Addison. You’ve always held it all in until one little thing sends you over the edge and you flip out and fall apart and can’t do anything for the next twelve hours. You can’t do that anymore and I have no idea why you haven’t figured that out yet.”
“Stop head shrinking me, Mark. You’re not a therapist.”
“No, I’m not. I am your husband and I am their father and I do not want you to be in the grocery store with Dylan and have a lack of the kind of orange juice you like make you freak out.”
“That won’t...”
“How do you know?”
“Then what do you want me to do, Mark? Tell me. Tell me what you want me to do.”
“I want you to talk to me. Tell me if you had a bad day. Let me hug you if you need to cry. You think I don’t know that you cry in the shower sometimes in the morning?”
“If you want to hug me while I cry and you know I cry in the shower, why the hell don’t you do anything?”
“Because I don’t speak Girl, Addison! I’ve been living with you for seven years and I still don’t understand you.” Mark takes a deep breath and calms down: this isn’t her fault; this isn’t anyone’s fault. “I need you to talk to me even if you don’t need to talk to me. I love you and I can’t stand that I don’t know how you are.”
Addison finds her emotional ground again and stands up straight. “You want to know how I am? Fine. I’m scared out of my mind for Kylie. I know that she’s getting better and they expect her to go into remission by next year but that doesn’t change that I’m terrified. I’m trying to spend as much time as I can with Noah and Dylan so that they don’t feel like I love Kylie more than them because that’s not true and it’s not fair. I’m working insane hours and pulling double duty as an OB and as a surgeon because we’re short-staffed right now. I’m worried about my husband because he won’t talk to me. And I’m scared shitless because I fall asleep in your arms every night and feel like there’s something missing. We haven’t had sex in at least a month, we don’t talk about anything besides kids, cancer and work and I’m really fucking terrified because I don’t want Addison and Mark to turn into Addison and Derek. That’s how I am, Mark.”
“We’re not going to...”
“How the hell do you know that?” She cuts him off angrily. “How do you know? Because we have kids? Because you’re not him? Tell me, Mark. Besides that you’re home every night and actually acknowledge my presence, what about us right now is not how Addison and Derek started to fall apart?”
He wants to retort with because I love you but he knows that it won’t work: Derek did love her, and she knows that, and he probably still does just a little. He wants to retort with because I’m not Derek but that’s a silly argument: he and Derek grew up together and despite some very obvious personality differences, they’re very similar. And he really wants to retort with just shut the hell up and trust me when I say we won’t but that’s not what she needs to hear. “Because we caught it early,” he chooses and says it softly. “Because you decided to say something and I decided to listen.”
Addison blinks, expecting something completely different, something cliché and ridiculous that she’d heard before. “Thank you,” she whispers after the shock of hearing a completely unexpected truth has dissipated.
“You’re welcome.”
“Fight over?” She pouts a little in innocent hope.
“You gonna tell me when you had a shitty day?”
“Yeah.”
“Fight over.” He wraps his arms around her in a loose but comforting hug and kisses the top of her head.
Addison lifts her head from his shoulder after a few minutes and looks into his eyes, searching for something she hasn’t seen in a while. She finds it easily and realizes that maybe the reason she hasn’t seen it is because she hasn’t been looking all that closely. With a soft smile, she brushes her lips against his and as his tongue knowingly sweeps past her lips to touch hers, a shock runs all the way through her body and she shivers.
“Bedroom,” Mark murmurs against her lips when he feels the shiver.
Unsure whether it’s a demand or a suggestion - and not really caring one way or the other - Addison follows him out of the kitchen to the stairs. Pausing on every step to kiss and every so often break away to unbutton a few buttons or pull a shirt over a head and let it fall to the floor, they eventually make it to their bed. Fully aware that they’re the only ones in the house, Addison lets out a low moan as his lips find her neck and earlobe.
There’s an unspoken understanding that there’s plenty of time for foreplay in the next day and a half. Mark gently sucks on a nipple and slides his fingers into her just enough to get her wet and squirming and ready before he settles himself above her, still waiting for her nod of permission even after all their years together. At her soft crooked smile, he shifts himself and slips into her.
He takes his time, embellishing her cheeks with tiny kisses as he smoothly moves above her. She smiles up at him and traces the contours of his face, trailing her fingers down his neck to follow the lines of the defined muscles in his shoulders. When his hand gently brushes the skin of her stomach, she shivers and when his finger softly touches her clit it becomes too much and she has to hold on and close her eyes, relishing the pleasure that she had missed so much.
Her breath catches in her throat as she feels her orgasm begin to build within her and she opens her eyes to see Mark’s darkened eyes tell her that he’s just as close. He keeps his rhythm steady, drawing it out for both of them as long as possible, before he can’t hold out anymore and moans her name into her neck. She whispers I love you just before she joins him a few moments later and her eyes flutter shut again as her back arches into him.
Mark holds steady above her, waiting for her to open her eyes so he can smile at her and kiss her softly and tell her that he loves her, too. He carefully slips out of her and rolls onto his back, not missing a beat by sliding an arm under her and tugging her to him. Choosing not to comment on the sparkling tears in her eyes because he knows what they’re from this time and he feels the same way, he presses a kiss to her forehead. They laugh as they work together to pull the blankets up over them and decide that it’s far too much work to crawl out of bed and find clothes and they’re the only ones there anyway, they slowly fall asleep in each other’s arms.
--
She doesn’t get to come home for her birthday.
They try. Everybody tries. They don’t tell her one way or the other no matter how much she asks or cries because everyone knows that telling her two weeks before her birthday that she can go home only to be told two days before her birthday that she can’t would devastate her far more than having to wait to know.
But a week before, she develops a mild fever and she is forced to spend her third birthday in the walls of the hospital.
She does, however, get the next best thing.
In lieu of infection, downturn or anything else, she’ll get to go home for Christmas.
And stay home.
--
Mark was right. They caught it in enough time to still fix it. For a while it seems like things are forced and Addison still hates when he bugs her about things and begrudgingly admits that she needed the shoulder to cry on and he hates that he sometimes has to drag details out of her but the swelling has gone down and the stitches have come out and the tiny scar on their relationship is gradually disappearing.
It helps when they finally take Kylie home. She still has to go back regularly for outpatient chemo treatments and she screams like someone’s severing a limb when they pull off the tape that holds the shunt to her chest and they eventually switch to paper tape but they settle into normal fairly quickly. Noah and Dylan quietly came up to Addison with looks that state they’ve been plotting and suggest decorating with Welcome Home banners because they’ve done that in school when someone comes back from being sick or has a broken leg and been out for a few days and Addison decides it’s a good idea; she avoids banners and cheesy decorations but she makes a cake with painstakingly iced Welcome home, Kylie in pink on the top.
The first night home, Addison closes the last page of The Teddy Bears’ Picnic (Kylie’s favorite book that Addison now has memorized) and sets it on the nightstand. She kisses her daughter’s cheek and whispers that she’s glad she’s home, she loves her and sweet dreams and moves to climb out of bed but stops when she feels Kylie tug on her shirt. “What’s up?”
“Stay with me. Please?”
The desperate and longing look in her daughter’s eyes shocks Addison and she realizes that she never once, in the year and a half Kylie was in the hospital, managed to stay the whole night with her. Now she can and she’s more than willing to promise that she’ll be back in a moment just after she’s said goodnight to Dylan and Noah and Daddy and changed into PJs. Kylie bites her lip in an expression she learned directly from her mother and nods, her eyes lighting up at the promise of finally getting to cuddle with her mom for the entire night.
Addison stands at the door to the boys’ room and watches Mark read their sons the end of Where the Wild Things Are. They’ll move Noah to his own room eventually but for now they keep each other calm at night. Noah curls closer to Mark and, not willing to get less Daddy Time, Dylan does the same. They alternate who reads in what bed because books have pictures and six and seven year-olds like seeing pictures.
“The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws but Max stepped into his private boat and waved goodbye.” Mark turns a page and ruffles a sleepy Dylan’s red hair. “And sailed back over a year, and in and out of weeks, and through a day and into the night of his very own room where he found his supper waiting for him.”
“And it was still hot,” Dylan mumbles with Mark, finishing the favorite bedtime story. He pretends to be awake enough to crawl out of his brother’s bed and wander over to his but he yawns too much and Mark picks him up and carries him over.
Addison takes her cue to walk in and kiss their foreheads and give them hugs goodnight. Noah holds onto her a little tighter, having been yelled at by his teacher for not paying attention while they were learning to write the alphabet (because she apparently didn’t understand the implications of his baby sister coming home) and needing a little more comfort. She smiles and gives him an extra kiss when Dylan isn’t looking and whispers that she’ll have (another) chat with the uncooperative teacher after the holidays. She shares a grin with Mark as he heads across the hall to kiss Kylie goodnight.
“ ‘night, Mommy,” Dylan mumbles though he’s already half-asleep. He gives her a tired hug and promptly falls asleep before he can hear her whisper that she loves him.
“Sweet dreams, guys,” she whispers and turns out the light, closing the door all but a few inches behind her as she meets Mark in the hall.
Before she can give him any look at all, he smiles. “Go.” Normally he’d joke about Kylie liking Addison more than him, but he knows that Addison has more emergencies than he does and never had a chance to sleep with her the entire night. “I love you.” He kisses and hugs her goodnight after she’s changed into pajamas with her face washed and teeth brushed and he heads downstairs to watch recaps of the night’s games.
“Hey cutie,” Addison grins as she gently shuts Kylie’s door. Navigating by the soft purple light of a unicorn nightlight, she makes her way to the small bed and lays down next to the girl. Kylie immediately digs under the covers and buries her head in her mother’s shoulder, getting as close as possible in the warm embrace.
“You’re comfier than Daddy,” Kylie murmurs truthfully.
Addison smiles, unsure of what that comments on but takes it as a compliment anyway. She finds Mark perfectly comfortable but is sure that, to a three year-old, there are some differences. “I love you, Kylie. Welcome home.”
“Love you too.” She smiles contently and cuddles in even closer, feeling safe and comforted for the first time in a long time.
--
Mark stifles a yawn on his way up the stairs. It’s habit now to check on his children before he goes to bed whether he’s already in the bedroom or coming up from watching television or reading. He peeks into Noah’s and Dylan’s room first, smiling as he sees their chests rise and fall in unison despite being on opposite sides of the room. Though Noah tries to act like he’s quite a bit older, he still sleeps curled around a teddy bear he’s had since he was born. And as calm as Dylan is when he’s awake, he always ends up balled up in the corner with all the blankets tangled around him or on the floor.
He whispers one more time that he loves them and steps back out. He smiles even wider when he looks in Kylie’s room. Her head is barely visible above the covers but she’s safely tucked under Addison’s chin with her mother’s arms tight around her. Soundly asleep, Addison’s face is completely relaxed for the first time since Kylie was diagnosed, finally realizing, despite all of her firm beliefs, that her little girl is going to be okay.
--
For her fourth birthday, she gets an even better present.
Remission.
A Posteriori :: 20,000 Miles Above the Sea
Rating: R. Don’t tell me you really thought I was going to keep this family-friendly. But, I gotta tell ya: I felt really weird writing softcore porn in an airport. Really weird.
Summary: This is more a parent chapter than a family chapter because I miss them together and my Google searching skills have gradually dulled in my memory with my exodus from the organized education system. Addison has an anxiety attack over Oreos. Consequently, the boys become old enough to go to sleepover parties. Fighting and fluff and sex ensue. Then we skip a few months and then a year and a half because this is fic and I can do that.
Note: I had a massive headache last night and was exhausted from working four ten-hour days and being up since 5:00 and then flying so I didn’t get roaring drunk like I planned so consequently I wasn’t hungover and for some ungodly reason woke up at 7:38 and started this. I will, however, be sleeping off the rest of this weekend well into Tuesday.
A Posteriori :: Eppur Si Muove
A Posteriori :: Feel Me Heaven
A Posteriori :: Dreaming of Andromeda
A Posteriori :: Dancing With Mephisto
A Posteriori :: Northern Lights
A Posteriori :: Invisible Love
A Posteriori :: Message from Io
“What happened?” Mark breaks into a run as he watches his wife’s doctor, Becky Ward, walk out of a room at the end of the hallway.
“Breathe, Mark,” she reassures him. “She had an anxiety attack. We have her on ten milligrams of diazepam so she’s kinda doped up right now, but she’s breathing regularly, her heart’s back to normal and she’s calm.”
His eyebrows shoot up at the mention of the high dose and he shifts his eyes to look at the closed blinds out of concern. He sighs and turns back. “Any idea what caused it?”
Becky puts her hands on her hips and stares up at him with a look that clearly states that she thinks he’s a complete dumbass for needing to ask. “She’s juggling eight flaming swords, Mark. But the prom dress she’s doing it in is falling apart.”
“What?”
“She has three kids. One of them has leukemia. As such, if she isn’t careful, the other two will be pushed to the side. She has you, who she doesn’t want to push to the side either. She has her own emotions which she isn’t willing to dump on you because she thinks you have enough to worry about without wondering when she’s going to crack. And she has work.” She holds up a finger and shakes it a little when he opens his mouth to speak. “She looks like she’s holding it together just fine - that’s the prom dress. But people who are doing just fine? They don’t have anxiety attacks because there wasn’t enough milk left in the glass to dunk the last Oreo in. That’s the falling apart bit.”
Mark leans the side of his head against the wall. “I should have...”
“No, you shouldn’t have. Your wife is a phenomenal actress and don’t give me this shit about you’re her husband, you love her, you’re supposed to be paying attention and noticing these things and you think it’s making you turn into Derek. You’re not Derek and thank God for that. But you’re allowed to be a little distracted. You’re allowed to not see things. You have the same swords she does.” She puts her hand on his arm when he sighs and her expression softens out of a lecture. “When was the last time you and Addison had sex?”
His eyes spring open. “What the hell kind of question is that?”
“A real one and I’m asking it. As her doctor and her friend. Answer it.” She shakes her head; he’s taking far too long to answer. “Spend some real time together. No kids. No kid talk. No hospital talk. Just you two. Before your kids become to you and her what work was to her and Derek.”
“I’m not...”
“Look, I know the analogy isn’t perfect. But the two of you are rightfully terrified for Kylie and are doing your damndest to pay equal attention to Noah and Dylan and somehow in the process you’re beginning to forget the emotional and physical stuff of being married. Happy emotional stuff.” Seeing him think and have no response, she continues. “You guys used to be disgustingly cute and happy. I don’t know what goes on at home, but here you’re just kind of...stagnant.”
“Kylie...”
She cuts him off, determined to not let him finish any sentence. “Yes. But do you really think that she wants both of you wandering around with that damn Ziggy rain cloud over your head? Do you really think that’s going to help her? Or your sons?”
Mark hears the implied or you quite loud in his head and lets out a deep heavy breath and moves away from the completely valid point he doesn’t want to admit someone had to make. “She had an anxiety attack over Oreos?”
“Not the root cause, Mark.” Becky pats his shoulder as she brushes past him.
“Hi,” Addison says softly and a little dreamily as Mark shuts the door to her room behind him.
“I heard you had a little freak out.”
She shrugs and picks at the white sheet under her. “Yeah. Big huge monumental freak out is more like it.”
He holds out his hand. “Come on.”
Addison stands up and her eyes go wide at the sudden change of altitude and she holds onto the bed for support until the room goes straight again. “Where are we going?” She clasps his hand, comforted by the solid grasp.
“Home.”
“But...”
“She’ll be okay. And that sleepover birthday party they weren’t ‘old enough’ to go to when they asked this morning? Officially old enough as of five minutes ago.”
“Mark.” She gives him the same look she gives Dylan when steals a cookie from Noah’s plate when he isn’t looking. Unfortunately, the drugs make her look more goofy than serious.
“You’re stoned; you don’t get a vote.” He smiles at her and tugs her into an embrace and kisses her hair.
“I am not.”
--
Mark smiles as he closes the door behind him and steps into a silent house. Cashing in a favor from three years ago, he managed to buy them an additional night alone. Addison’s just-in-case prescription in hand, he toes off his shoes and quietly turns out lights as he makes his way upstairs. He passes the open window in the upstairs hall and shivers a little because it’s getting a bit too cold for open windows but Addison has a thing for breathing fresh air until it starts snowing. Setting the translucent amber bottle on the bathroom counter, Mark quickly changes into a pair of sweatpants and heads back into the bedroom to pull the curtains against the brilliance of the setting sun and curl under the warm covers (while he doesn’t see the logic in having windows open and sleeping under a down comforter, he lets it go because she’s cute when she’s snuggled deep and tight into a mess of blankets and pillows) with his wife.
“I miss you,” she whispers after several minutes of pretending to be asleep. She still feels a little loopy and out of it and she isn’t quite in her own mind enough to silence things she would normally censor.
Mark nods against her shoulder and kisses the nape of her neck through her hair. “I miss you too,” he breathes, tightening his arm around her. “Oh,” he whispers when he feels her immediately start to cry without even a split second of tension to hold it back. “Come here, Addie.” He gently rolls her over in his arms and holds her closely while she silently sobs into his chest. It scares him - both for her sake and his - that she’s crying like this. She’s never held onto him this tightly for this long, her tears have never been so consistently steady. It scares him just how much she’s been holding back and it worries him just how much he didn’t notice. While Becky is right and Addison is a pro at convincing absolutely everyone that she’s completely fine, he still thinks that he should have seen something.
“Now you’re all wet,” she apologizes and rubs at her eyes with her fists.
He knows it’s inappropriate, but he can’t help but chuckle; she was given a lighter dose before she left the hospital to make sure the calmness stays and the side effects are still present. “It’s okay,” he kisses her nose and wraps his arms lovingly around her.
“I want her to get better. And it’s just...I want it to be instinct to pay attention to them, to hug them, I don’t want to be reading them a story and thinking about the nights that I’m not reading to her. I don’t want to have to remember to pay attention to my kids. I want it to just happen. And,” she sniffles, “I miss you. I miss my husband. I miss laughing without feeling guilty. Trying to be quiet while you tickle me until I fall off the bed. I miss sex and I’m tired of crying all the time.”
Mark sighs heavily and blinks back a few tears of his own; at some level, he knows she’s crying more than she lets on: sometimes he’ll see her gazing off with a sad look on her face and sometimes she’ll write sniffles off to seasonal allergies or red eyes to contacts but no matter how hard he’s pushed her, she still says she’s okay and he’s just learned to drop it. “Addison, you have no idea how good you are at making everyone think that you’re completely okay inside. You drop what you think is a hint and I think it’s a bad day because I don’t know any better. And because I don’t know any better, I just react to what you’re doing.” He slides down a little so he’s at eye level with her. “You’re not supposed to be one hundred percent okay, Ads. Talk to me. Okay?” He frowns when she sniffles and zones out staring at his chest for a moment. “Stay with me, here.”
She shakes her head and blinks back to the conversation. “Yeah, okay. Sorry, I’m...”
“I know. Oreos and not enough milk.”
Addison cringes. “She told you?”
Mark nods and smiles and drops the subject, knowing that it’s far more than an afternoon snack of milk and cookies and he shouldn’t tease her for it even though he wants to. He kisses her cheek and hugs her. “Go back to sleep, Addie.”
--
“Because you don’t need any more on your mind. You don’t need to worry about me, too!”
“You know what? You’re right. I don’t need any more on my mind. So why don’t you just stay completely silent until something ridiculous sends you flying off the edge into hyperventilating panic and you need three people and high doses of drugs to calm you down. Because then I won’t worry at all.”
She opens her mouth to retaliate but all she can come up with is a comment about sarcasm not helping the situation so she simply doesn’t say anything. Sarcasm or not, he has a point and she hates it when that happens. “Mark, I...” she nervously tucks her hair behind her hair.
“I get that the mom thing and the doctor thing make you think that you’re supposed to take care of everyone. And some days, that’s really cute and endearing and I love that about you. But other days, it’s a pain in the ass because you don’t let anyone take care of you. You’re way past the point where you can get away with the tough I-can-take-care-of-myself thing.”
“I can take care of myself.”
He crosses his arms. “Really.”
“Okay! So that was one time! I’m sorry!”
“You’ve always done this, Addison. You’ve always held it all in until one little thing sends you over the edge and you flip out and fall apart and can’t do anything for the next twelve hours. You can’t do that anymore and I have no idea why you haven’t figured that out yet.”
“Stop head shrinking me, Mark. You’re not a therapist.”
“No, I’m not. I am your husband and I am their father and I do not want you to be in the grocery store with Dylan and have a lack of the kind of orange juice you like make you freak out.”
“That won’t...”
“How do you know?”
“Then what do you want me to do, Mark? Tell me. Tell me what you want me to do.”
“I want you to talk to me. Tell me if you had a bad day. Let me hug you if you need to cry. You think I don’t know that you cry in the shower sometimes in the morning?”
“If you want to hug me while I cry and you know I cry in the shower, why the hell don’t you do anything?”
“Because I don’t speak Girl, Addison! I’ve been living with you for seven years and I still don’t understand you.” Mark takes a deep breath and calms down: this isn’t her fault; this isn’t anyone’s fault. “I need you to talk to me even if you don’t need to talk to me. I love you and I can’t stand that I don’t know how you are.”
Addison finds her emotional ground again and stands up straight. “You want to know how I am? Fine. I’m scared out of my mind for Kylie. I know that she’s getting better and they expect her to go into remission by next year but that doesn’t change that I’m terrified. I’m trying to spend as much time as I can with Noah and Dylan so that they don’t feel like I love Kylie more than them because that’s not true and it’s not fair. I’m working insane hours and pulling double duty as an OB and as a surgeon because we’re short-staffed right now. I’m worried about my husband because he won’t talk to me. And I’m scared shitless because I fall asleep in your arms every night and feel like there’s something missing. We haven’t had sex in at least a month, we don’t talk about anything besides kids, cancer and work and I’m really fucking terrified because I don’t want Addison and Mark to turn into Addison and Derek. That’s how I am, Mark.”
“We’re not going to...”
“How the hell do you know that?” She cuts him off angrily. “How do you know? Because we have kids? Because you’re not him? Tell me, Mark. Besides that you’re home every night and actually acknowledge my presence, what about us right now is not how Addison and Derek started to fall apart?”
He wants to retort with because I love you but he knows that it won’t work: Derek did love her, and she knows that, and he probably still does just a little. He wants to retort with because I’m not Derek but that’s a silly argument: he and Derek grew up together and despite some very obvious personality differences, they’re very similar. And he really wants to retort with just shut the hell up and trust me when I say we won’t but that’s not what she needs to hear. “Because we caught it early,” he chooses and says it softly. “Because you decided to say something and I decided to listen.”
Addison blinks, expecting something completely different, something cliché and ridiculous that she’d heard before. “Thank you,” she whispers after the shock of hearing a completely unexpected truth has dissipated.
“You’re welcome.”
“Fight over?” She pouts a little in innocent hope.
“You gonna tell me when you had a shitty day?”
“Yeah.”
“Fight over.” He wraps his arms around her in a loose but comforting hug and kisses the top of her head.
Addison lifts her head from his shoulder after a few minutes and looks into his eyes, searching for something she hasn’t seen in a while. She finds it easily and realizes that maybe the reason she hasn’t seen it is because she hasn’t been looking all that closely. With a soft smile, she brushes her lips against his and as his tongue knowingly sweeps past her lips to touch hers, a shock runs all the way through her body and she shivers.
“Bedroom,” Mark murmurs against her lips when he feels the shiver.
Unsure whether it’s a demand or a suggestion - and not really caring one way or the other - Addison follows him out of the kitchen to the stairs. Pausing on every step to kiss and every so often break away to unbutton a few buttons or pull a shirt over a head and let it fall to the floor, they eventually make it to their bed. Fully aware that they’re the only ones in the house, Addison lets out a low moan as his lips find her neck and earlobe.
There’s an unspoken understanding that there’s plenty of time for foreplay in the next day and a half. Mark gently sucks on a nipple and slides his fingers into her just enough to get her wet and squirming and ready before he settles himself above her, still waiting for her nod of permission even after all their years together. At her soft crooked smile, he shifts himself and slips into her.
He takes his time, embellishing her cheeks with tiny kisses as he smoothly moves above her. She smiles up at him and traces the contours of his face, trailing her fingers down his neck to follow the lines of the defined muscles in his shoulders. When his hand gently brushes the skin of her stomach, she shivers and when his finger softly touches her clit it becomes too much and she has to hold on and close her eyes, relishing the pleasure that she had missed so much.
Her breath catches in her throat as she feels her orgasm begin to build within her and she opens her eyes to see Mark’s darkened eyes tell her that he’s just as close. He keeps his rhythm steady, drawing it out for both of them as long as possible, before he can’t hold out anymore and moans her name into her neck. She whispers I love you just before she joins him a few moments later and her eyes flutter shut again as her back arches into him.
Mark holds steady above her, waiting for her to open her eyes so he can smile at her and kiss her softly and tell her that he loves her, too. He carefully slips out of her and rolls onto his back, not missing a beat by sliding an arm under her and tugging her to him. Choosing not to comment on the sparkling tears in her eyes because he knows what they’re from this time and he feels the same way, he presses a kiss to her forehead. They laugh as they work together to pull the blankets up over them and decide that it’s far too much work to crawl out of bed and find clothes and they’re the only ones there anyway, they slowly fall asleep in each other’s arms.
--
She doesn’t get to come home for her birthday.
They try. Everybody tries. They don’t tell her one way or the other no matter how much she asks or cries because everyone knows that telling her two weeks before her birthday that she can go home only to be told two days before her birthday that she can’t would devastate her far more than having to wait to know.
But a week before, she develops a mild fever and she is forced to spend her third birthday in the walls of the hospital.
She does, however, get the next best thing.
In lieu of infection, downturn or anything else, she’ll get to go home for Christmas.
And stay home.
--
Mark was right. They caught it in enough time to still fix it. For a while it seems like things are forced and Addison still hates when he bugs her about things and begrudgingly admits that she needed the shoulder to cry on and he hates that he sometimes has to drag details out of her but the swelling has gone down and the stitches have come out and the tiny scar on their relationship is gradually disappearing.
It helps when they finally take Kylie home. She still has to go back regularly for outpatient chemo treatments and she screams like someone’s severing a limb when they pull off the tape that holds the shunt to her chest and they eventually switch to paper tape but they settle into normal fairly quickly. Noah and Dylan quietly came up to Addison with looks that state they’ve been plotting and suggest decorating with Welcome Home banners because they’ve done that in school when someone comes back from being sick or has a broken leg and been out for a few days and Addison decides it’s a good idea; she avoids banners and cheesy decorations but she makes a cake with painstakingly iced Welcome home, Kylie in pink on the top.
The first night home, Addison closes the last page of The Teddy Bears’ Picnic (Kylie’s favorite book that Addison now has memorized) and sets it on the nightstand. She kisses her daughter’s cheek and whispers that she’s glad she’s home, she loves her and sweet dreams and moves to climb out of bed but stops when she feels Kylie tug on her shirt. “What’s up?”
“Stay with me. Please?”
The desperate and longing look in her daughter’s eyes shocks Addison and she realizes that she never once, in the year and a half Kylie was in the hospital, managed to stay the whole night with her. Now she can and she’s more than willing to promise that she’ll be back in a moment just after she’s said goodnight to Dylan and Noah and Daddy and changed into PJs. Kylie bites her lip in an expression she learned directly from her mother and nods, her eyes lighting up at the promise of finally getting to cuddle with her mom for the entire night.
Addison stands at the door to the boys’ room and watches Mark read their sons the end of Where the Wild Things Are. They’ll move Noah to his own room eventually but for now they keep each other calm at night. Noah curls closer to Mark and, not willing to get less Daddy Time, Dylan does the same. They alternate who reads in what bed because books have pictures and six and seven year-olds like seeing pictures.
“The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws but Max stepped into his private boat and waved goodbye.” Mark turns a page and ruffles a sleepy Dylan’s red hair. “And sailed back over a year, and in and out of weeks, and through a day and into the night of his very own room where he found his supper waiting for him.”
“And it was still hot,” Dylan mumbles with Mark, finishing the favorite bedtime story. He pretends to be awake enough to crawl out of his brother’s bed and wander over to his but he yawns too much and Mark picks him up and carries him over.
Addison takes her cue to walk in and kiss their foreheads and give them hugs goodnight. Noah holds onto her a little tighter, having been yelled at by his teacher for not paying attention while they were learning to write the alphabet (because she apparently didn’t understand the implications of his baby sister coming home) and needing a little more comfort. She smiles and gives him an extra kiss when Dylan isn’t looking and whispers that she’ll have (another) chat with the uncooperative teacher after the holidays. She shares a grin with Mark as he heads across the hall to kiss Kylie goodnight.
“ ‘night, Mommy,” Dylan mumbles though he’s already half-asleep. He gives her a tired hug and promptly falls asleep before he can hear her whisper that she loves him.
“Sweet dreams, guys,” she whispers and turns out the light, closing the door all but a few inches behind her as she meets Mark in the hall.
Before she can give him any look at all, he smiles. “Go.” Normally he’d joke about Kylie liking Addison more than him, but he knows that Addison has more emergencies than he does and never had a chance to sleep with her the entire night. “I love you.” He kisses and hugs her goodnight after she’s changed into pajamas with her face washed and teeth brushed and he heads downstairs to watch recaps of the night’s games.
“Hey cutie,” Addison grins as she gently shuts Kylie’s door. Navigating by the soft purple light of a unicorn nightlight, she makes her way to the small bed and lays down next to the girl. Kylie immediately digs under the covers and buries her head in her mother’s shoulder, getting as close as possible in the warm embrace.
“You’re comfier than Daddy,” Kylie murmurs truthfully.
Addison smiles, unsure of what that comments on but takes it as a compliment anyway. She finds Mark perfectly comfortable but is sure that, to a three year-old, there are some differences. “I love you, Kylie. Welcome home.”
“Love you too.” She smiles contently and cuddles in even closer, feeling safe and comforted for the first time in a long time.
--
Mark stifles a yawn on his way up the stairs. It’s habit now to check on his children before he goes to bed whether he’s already in the bedroom or coming up from watching television or reading. He peeks into Noah’s and Dylan’s room first, smiling as he sees their chests rise and fall in unison despite being on opposite sides of the room. Though Noah tries to act like he’s quite a bit older, he still sleeps curled around a teddy bear he’s had since he was born. And as calm as Dylan is when he’s awake, he always ends up balled up in the corner with all the blankets tangled around him or on the floor.
He whispers one more time that he loves them and steps back out. He smiles even wider when he looks in Kylie’s room. Her head is barely visible above the covers but she’s safely tucked under Addison’s chin with her mother’s arms tight around her. Soundly asleep, Addison’s face is completely relaxed for the first time since Kylie was diagnosed, finally realizing, despite all of her firm beliefs, that her little girl is going to be okay.
--
For her fourth birthday, she gets an even better present.
Remission.
A Posteriori :: 20,000 Miles Above the Sea