A Posteriori
Title: A Posteriori :: 20,000 Miles Above the Sea [9/12]
Rating: R. Lightly.
Summary: Oh, hey, they finally get a honeymoon. Some sex, some fluff, some kid interaction, and one very amusing incident with icing.
Note: So, I’m watching this National Geographic thing on monster fish? And it’s pretty amazing. Also? My parents are now en route to Bhutan for their thirtieth anniversary. As such, I will not have any feeling of obligation for the next three weeks to be social with anyone between the hours of 6:00 and 10:30pm so fic might explode. If all goes according to plan, the next chapter will be markedly longer. And I'm exhausted. Any weird errors will be dealt with tomorrow.
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
A Posteriori :: Hello and Welcome
“What’s wrong?” Mark raises a concerned eyebrow upon seeing his wife stand in her underwear and bra in front of the mirror in their walk-in closet.
“I’m getting old,” she sighs and tries to keep her shoulders from slumping too much as she examines her thighs.
“You don’t look like it.”
“You’re my husband, you’re supposed to say that.”
Mark chuckles quietly. “I’m a plastic surgeon. You would have no business being on my operating table.” He smiles at her in the mirror. He’s long past working solely on cosmetic surgery, focusing mostly on reconstruction, but every so often a mother of three ends up under his knife to fix a leftover baby pouch that just won’t go away. When he sees that his encouragement didn’t help much, his smile turns a little sad. “What would you fix?”
She looks up from debating the status of her breasts. “What?”
“Tell me what you would fix and I’ll tell you why you shouldn’t.”
Addison nods and frowns, trying to figure out where to start. “My stomach.”
“What size were you before the kids?”
“Four.” She sighs sadly, missing the days when those pants and skirts would fit.
“What size are you now?”
“Six.”
“And what size is the average female?”
“Eight or ten.” She scrunches her nose, knowing that he just painted her into a corner.
Mark gives her a pointed look and a raised eyebrow and steps toward her and gently touches his fingertips to the bare skin of her stomach. “Remember how bad you felt after your C-section with Kylie?” He waits for her nod. “Take that kind of pain but only for one jeans size lower.” He’s heard mixed reviews of the post-op pain, but there’s no harm in maybe exaggerating now. He takes his time tracing the toned muscles that lie just below her soft skin, dipping low to follow the line of her panties and back up to tease the bottom edge of her bra. Still moving slowly, he whispers in her ear, “what else?”
She takes a controlled breath and forces herself to keep her eyes open. “My boobs aren’t quite as perky as they used to be.”
“Mmm,” he hums into her neck and brings his hands up to cup her breasts through the black fabric. “You nursed three beautiful children,” he gently tugs on her earlobe with his teeth when he feels that she’s about to tell him not to use that argument. “And your boobs are just as fun as when I first met you,” he grins at her shiver and soft moan when he rubs a hard nipple through her bra. “Plus,” he sucks on a spot on her neck just hard enough to leave a mark that will last the night but not be there in the morning, “there’s some risk of desensitivity.”
“And I have wrinkles,” she says sadly. While she likes the game he’s playing, her main problem isn’t convincible by anything sexual.
“Ah,” Mark says quietly, knowing that it’s always been one of her biggest fears, and turns her around to face him. “But these mean that you know how to laugh.” He kisses the corners of her eyes. “And I like it when you laugh and crinkle your eyes when Dylan makes a funny face or Kylie looks just like you when she pouts about not getting another cookie. And these,” he kisses the corners of her mouth, “mean you know how to smile. And this one is entirely selfish. Because I can be having the worst day possible and all you have to do is smile at me and the day doesn’t suck nearly as much.” There was a time when he would scoff at saying anything remotely sentimental and there was a time when he would complain about a woman being able to make him say anything remotely sentimental but now is the time when he laughs because he’s found the woman who makes him say anything remotely sentimental without even trying.
Addison opens her eyes and smiles softly at him. “Thank you.”
He kisses her lightly. “You’re welcome.” Looking at his watch, he sighs. “I’m going to pick Annie up from the airport.” At her pout and scrunched up nose, he laughs. “And you should probably get some clothes on before we get back or one of the Three Musketeers wakes up.” A baseball game earlier in the day tired everyone out.
Addison smiles and shakes her head. At twelve, ten and eight, they’re more of a handful than they ever were when they were toddling around and fighting over toothpaste and laps. They seem to be well on their way to bypassing unfriendly sibling rivalry, instead favoring ganging up against their parents when it comes time to arguing about bedtimes, report cards, playing in the rain in March and how many days in a row it’s acceptable to eat leftover lasagna. Noah’s always the leader standing as tall as he can with Kylie fiercely by his side trying to use big words to make her sound like she knows what she’s talking about and Dylan speaking up when one of the other two needs to catch their breath. Some days it’s cute and other times it’s infuriating how hard they’ll try to argue something so miniscule as an extra sixty cents for a can of soda at lunch when a juice box was perfectly okay two days ago.
“Go. I’ll be dressed when you get back.”
--
“Call when you get to San Francisco.”
“You really want me to call you when it’s one in the morning here?” Addison raises an eyebrow at her mother-in-law (for all intents and purposes, really; Mallory Sloan is an incurable notorious alcoholic neither Addison nor Mark want around their children and his father ran off when he was ten, sparking the alcohol problem).
Annie gives Addison a firm look. “Yes. And when you get to Bangkok.”
“Okay, that one’s a ten-hour difference. But,” she catches Annie’s glare, “yes. We’ll call.”
“Good girl.”
Mark brings the last bag out to be tossed in the back of the cab. They debated having Annie drive them to the airport to make things easier but then they remembered that they have three children that they’re not quite willing to let stay home under the guidance of one rambunctious twelve year-old yet. “You gonna take good care of my kids?” Finally deeming the three of them old enough, Kylie healthy enough, and life calm enough to leave for more than three days, Addison and Mark decided to take two weeks for the honeymoon they’ve definitely deserved.
“That’s a stupid question.”
“I know. But I have to ask.” He looks over Annie’s shoulder and smiles as Addison tries to give a hug to all three children at once (and convince Noah that he isn’t thirteen yet so he doesn’t have the right to be a sullen teenager who sits out on big hugs). She eventually gives up and goes for the one-on-one. He hugs Annie and patiently waits his turn.
“I want an elephant,” Kylie requests of her father when she’s tucked tightly in his arms.
“Bring me back a sword!” Noah demands proudly.
Dylan thinks for a moment. “I want a monk,” he decides resolutely.
“I’ll do what I can on all three accounts,” Mark promises and gives them one last kiss each and then stands up to let Addison be a mom and do it again before he drags her to the cab so they won’t miss their flight or annoy any anal-retentive security guards.
--
Mark cups Addison’s cheek and smiles softly at the sound of her heavy breathing, the only sound in the room besides the bustle of the Bangkok streets below filtering up through their open window. “Hey, beautiful,” he whispers when she opens her still-clouded eyes.
Addison smiles back, biting her lip just a little as she basks in the glow of her husband’s love and the warm sensations still pulsating between her legs and throughout her body. Their sex life is healthy but usually coupled with effort to keep quiet or worry that someone will need something or desperate hope that a pager won’t go off. Though it’s good at home, it’s fantastic to simply let go and be in the moment without having to be on guard. She reaches her hand up and cups the back of his neck, gently massaging the skin just below his hairline as she lightly pulls him down for a kiss. “I love you,” she breathes against his lips.
“I love you, too.” He rolls off of her onto his back, smiling when she curls into his side and rests her head against his chest. He does what he can to tug a sheet somewhat over them. Stroking her hair he presses a kiss to her forehead. “Stop worrying about them. Annie is completely capable.”
She sighs and laughs quietly. “I know. But it’s in my nature to worry.”
Mark chuckles and trails his fingers down her sides, teasing her breasts. At her soft gasp, he smiles and gently turns them back over. She’s still a little uncomfortable about the way her body has aged and he’s still determined to convince her otherwise. He dips his head down and teases her nipples with his tongue as his hands slide down to urge her legs open.
“Mark...” She reaches down to cover his hands, enjoying the sex but not wanting to spend the entire time in the hotel naked.
“You’re going to deny me one of my favorite things?” He slips a finger just inside of her.
Her breath hitches in her throat and she lets his hands go and wiggles her hips. “Not as long as you wander around and get lost with me later.”
“Deal,” he grins into her stomach and hooks her legs over his shoulders.
--
“Noah Alexander Montgomery-Sloan, you are not a teenager yet. You are not allowed to sulk in the corner.” Annie points the butter knife at him and, upon looking at it, thinks that her point would be better made if there weren’t orange icing at the end of it.
“Please?” Kylie looks up at him with a smile that threatens to turn into an angry pout if he doesn’t give in.
With a sigh because his sister has him wrapped around her little finger, he uncrosses his arms and pushes off the wall and sits down at the table across from Dylan and next to Kylie. Though still convinced that this is some ploy to keep him an active member of the family while his parents are out of town and unable to enforce anything, he picks up a pumpkin-shaped cookie and a butter knife and starts spreading orange icing around it. He looks over at Kylie’s line of perfect pumpkins, each with a chocolate chip face and green stem, and shakes his head because he and Dylan are barely capable of getting the icing on moderately evenly without getting it all over themselves.
On impulse, when Annie’s back is turned as she makes more icing, Dylan puts an extra large amount of icing on his knife and pulls back the light metal as best he can and lets go, giggling madly as a spot of icing lands right above Noah’s left eye. He soon regrets it when Noah creates an icing slingshot of his own and retaliates with green. Kylie shoots a look at Annie and, determining that the woman is unable to hear anything over the sound of the mixer, gets in on the fight after watching several rounds from the sideline. She dips two fingers into the white they were using for ghosts and smushes it into Noah’s hair and that’s when Annie decides to turn around.
Kylie shrieks when Noah swipes orange on her nose and giggles as she trips over her feet and tumbles onto the floor in an effort to get away. She looks up at Annie for help when she sees her brothers whisper behind their hands but her grandmother simply shakes her head: you got yourself into this, kid. Kylie reaches up and grabs one of the bowls of green so that she’s at least prepared when the boys swoop down to the floor and chase her into the corner.
Annie shakes her head in disbelief as she watches the three kids rub icing into each other’s hair and try to get it over every visible patch of skin. She remembers epic icing fights and flour and powdered sugar used as blinding agents as her own children raced around the kitchen during the cookie baking seasons. As long as they helped clean it up, she never had a problem with it. And because of her strict enforcement of the clean up rule, the incident with the flour and powdered sugar was an isolated one. Tempted to join them, she swipes her finger in the fresh bowl of icing but stops and licks off the sweet substance instead. It’s only in the last year and a half that Kylie’s been healthy and strong enough to be able to play around with her brothers like this and it won’t be too long before Noah decides he’s too cool to tackle his sister with a handful of orange icing so she steps back and lets them have at it.
--
“If I can’t bring my daughter a full-size elephant, I’m not bringing back a sword for my son.” Addison stares firmly at Mark, unwilling to back down on this argument. If he were older or more interested in the culture and meaning behind the weapon and wouldn’t be inclined to wave it around at every moment possible, she’d put a little more thought toward the idea. As it stands, Noah is twelve and of the age where culture and history don’t matter a whole lot when it comes to owning cool stuff.
“Fine,” Mark concedes. He agrees with her completely but, having been a twelve year-old boy, knows exactly how cool it would be to have a Thai sword on his bedroom wall and his inner twelve year-old boy wants to live vicariously through Noah just a little. “Got any ideas about Dylan’s monk?”
Running a brush through her wet hair, Addison raises an eyebrow. “Where did that even come from?” Though she doesn’t really mind her youngest son’s interest in religion, she really does wonder what it stems from given that he has no strong religious influence in his life or real exposure to it.
Mark shrugs. “Not a clue.” He circles an arm around her waist and pulls her to him after she’s finished pulling her hair up in a loose braid. He shakes his head at himself. “I really love you.”
Addison smiles softly. “What brought that on?”
“You turned me into a total sap.”
“Good.” She smiles and kisses his cheek. “I like it when you say stuff like that.”
--
“You feeling okay?” Noah slips into Kylie’s room when they’re supposed to be asleep and Annie’s downstairs reading. Dylan follows a few seconds later, not wanting to risk causing too much noise in case Annie’s trying to pay attention to the goings-on of upstairs. Both brothers have noticed their sister being careful about the way she carries herself and uncharacteristically quiet and it worries them.
Kylie puts down her book but doesn’t turn off the flashlight. “No.”
“What’s wrong?” Noah asks, suddenly very concerned. He feels Dylan tense next to him; the younger boy is quieter but no less protective of her.
She shrugs. “I’m tired. And I feel yucky.” She knows that there’s something else extremely wrong, but she doesn’t want to tell her brothers because they’ll make her tell Annie (and if she doesn’t, they will) who will then call her parents who desperately need the time away and she doesn’t want them to have to cut that short (because she knows that if they get wind of her so much as having a fever they’ll fly back) if it’s nothing.
As if reading her mind, Dylan speaks up quietly. “Kylie, if you think you’re sick again...” He sounds so much older than his ten and a half years. They all do.
“I’m not!” She protests firmly but quietly. She refuses to be sick again; it wasn’t fun the first time and the last month she was there she became friends with an older girl who was there for her second time and it didn’t seem to be any better.
“Kylie,” Noah says softly. “You look like shit...”
“Watch your language,” Kylie says on impulse, mimicking her mother.
“...you’re dragging, those bruises on your arms have been there for three weeks and it’s November and you’re sleeping without the covers.” While he doesn’t want to believe that she’s relapsed, he doesn’t want everyone else to think that she’s wearing sweatshirts during the day just because she’s cold.
She bites her lip against tears. She’s almost at the four-year mark and she knows that it’s really rare for it to come back after she’s been in remission this long but she knows that it can. “Wait until they get back,” she whimpers.
“K-Bug,” Noah starts; he staunchly refuses to let anyone else call her by the nickname.
“No.” She looks up at her brothers in desperation. “If something’s wrong, I want them here.”
--
“Do I need to carry you in?” Mark grins at Addison as he nudges her awake from his shoulder when they pull up to their house.
“Maybe.” She mumbles and drags herself out of the car but her face lights up when her daughter nearly knocks her over with a running power hug and her sons tackle Mark at the same time. “Oooh, hey girl,” she hugs her tightly. “Did you miss me?” She kisses Kylie’s temple as the girl nods vigorously.
Exhausted, Addison tumbles into bed next to Mark, barely having enough energy to brush her teeth. She snuggles up against him and tucks her head under his chin. His arms are warm around her and she smiles contently as she whispers that she loves him and quickly drifts off to sleep.
Mark kisses her forehead and returns the sentiment. He’s sad to leave their vacation but he’s thrilled to be home. Part of him wonders where the womanizing, self-centered Mark Sloan with an attitude who showed his feelings by doing the exact opposite went and when he was replaced with the Mark Sloan who puts three small children and one beautiful woman in front of absolutely everything and who can’t wait to get home at the end of the day and who does things like flowers and chocolate. The part of him that doesn’t wonder doesn’t care.
--
“Kylie?” Mark looks at his daughter, concerned at her sudden and complete lack of color. He forgets about their dinner and walks over to her.
“I don’t feel good,” she murmurs and blinks against vertigo and spots across her vision.
Mark gathers his senses and picks her up off the chair and quickly lays her down on the living room couch a few steps away. She loses consciousness in his arms and wakes up a few seconds after he has her situated on the couch. He touches the back of her hand to her forehead and frowns at her feeling a bit warm. Shaking his head at her pulse and that the color in her face is kind of green, he really wishes that Addison wasn’t working late. “How long have those been there?” He brushes his fingers against a smattering of bruises on her arm that she’s kept covered up by a sweatshirt lately. His heart sinks at the desperate look in her eyes. “Kylie?”
“I don’t want to be sick again,” she whispers, several tears running down her cheeks.
“Oh, hey.” Mark sits on the couch next to her and wiggles around so she can lie with her head on his chest as she cries. “I love you, Kylie.” He holds his little girl to him, rubbing her back soothingly.
Addison smiles at the sight in front of her as she walks in a few hours later. Their boys are elsewhere, one at a friend’s house and the other at a school field trip sleepover at the zoo, but the relationship she loves watching the most is that between her husband and her daughter; it warms her soul to see his strong arms encircling someone so small and to listen to Kylie’s tinkling laugh as he does voices when they curl up and read books together. But her smile soon disappears when she sees how tightly Mark is holding onto her and his eyes open and she sees the expression within them. “What happened?” She sits on the edge of the couch and runs her fingers through the girl’s hair.
“She passed out a couple times,” he whispers. “And,” he points at her arm.
Addison’s shoulders slump and she closes her eyes and sighs. “Dammit.”
--
“It’s back, isn’t it?” Kylie looks up as her brothers sneak past their parents and her doctors and slip into her room. They took her in to get blood drawn but an incident with fainting in art class landed her back in the hospital the same day and her blood got pushed to the top of the pile.
Noah ignores Dylan’s quieting slap on his arm and nods, figuring that she knows anyway and she might as well hear it from someone who isn’t her doctor or about to cry. He climbs up into the bed that would be too small for him on his own and crowds in with his sister to give her a hug. “I’m sorry, K-Bug.”
She nods and leans her head on his shoulder and motions for Dylan to join the Montgomery-Sloan kid pile on her bed. He gently navigates around an IV line to balance precariously on the edge by her leg. She takes comfort in her two brothers, being strong when both parents are falling apart or doing a massively bad job at hiding that they’re about to.
The two boys immediately move to leave the room when Addison, Mark and Drs. Gold and McLeod walk in but Kylie grabs their arms and her eyes beg them to stay with her. Noah agrees quickly and Dylan agrees because Noah agrees and he doesn’t want to be that kid in the hall who didn’t want to hear bad news. It only takes one glance to see how tightly her parents are holding each other’s hands to tell Kylie just how bad it is.
Addison finds herself unable to talk, unable to say anything at all. No explanations, no comforting words, no I love you. She finds herself unable to move from that spot, not a millimeter one way or the other outside of the white tile she stands on. Terrified, she listens to the doctor repeat everything he told her before but in kid-friendly terms and grips Mark’s hand even tighter. She spares a glance at him when she feels him gently rubbing her palm with his thumb, doing his best to calm her down, and he gives her a quick but comforting nod.
The more Dr. Gold talks, the more scared Kylie gets and her parents see it. Addison’s heart breaks when her daughter looks over at her, her blue eyes filled with tears. She’s been through it before, but now words like transplant and radiation are being tossed around and Kylie knows that along with transplant comes donor and sometimes those are hard to find.
“Everybody out,” Mark says after the two doctors have said their final apologies and encouragements and left. He lets Noah and Dylan have a last hug with Kylie and then he bends down to give her a quick close hug and a promise that he’ll be back later. He kisses away one of her tears and assures her that she’s going to be okay and then follows his sons out the door to leave mother alone with daughter.
Kylie scoots over as best she can and rests her head on Addison’s chest the moment her mother is settled in against the pillows. She closes her eyes and lets Addison’s gentle strokes of her hair (hair she knows is going to fall out sometime soon) lull her into feeling calm again.
“I told you six years ago,” she starts in a whisper, “and I’m telling you again now. I promise you, you will be okay.”
Though Kylie doesn’t remember the first time, she believes that it happened. She knows better now, she knows what doctors in this ward are and aren’t supposed to say and that nothing - not even a cold - is guaranteed to be okay. But she snuggles tighter into Addison’s chest and knows that her mother doesn’t lie.
A Posteriori :: Sitting on the Moon
Rating: R. Lightly.
Summary: Oh, hey, they finally get a honeymoon. Some sex, some fluff, some kid interaction, and one very amusing incident with icing.
Note: So, I’m watching this National Geographic thing on monster fish? And it’s pretty amazing. Also? My parents are now en route to Bhutan for their thirtieth anniversary. As such, I will not have any feeling of obligation for the next three weeks to be social with anyone between the hours of 6:00 and 10:30pm so fic might explode. If all goes according to plan, the next chapter will be markedly longer. And I'm exhausted. Any weird errors will be dealt with tomorrow.
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
A Posteriori :: Hello and Welcome
“What’s wrong?” Mark raises a concerned eyebrow upon seeing his wife stand in her underwear and bra in front of the mirror in their walk-in closet.
“I’m getting old,” she sighs and tries to keep her shoulders from slumping too much as she examines her thighs.
“You don’t look like it.”
“You’re my husband, you’re supposed to say that.”
Mark chuckles quietly. “I’m a plastic surgeon. You would have no business being on my operating table.” He smiles at her in the mirror. He’s long past working solely on cosmetic surgery, focusing mostly on reconstruction, but every so often a mother of three ends up under his knife to fix a leftover baby pouch that just won’t go away. When he sees that his encouragement didn’t help much, his smile turns a little sad. “What would you fix?”
She looks up from debating the status of her breasts. “What?”
“Tell me what you would fix and I’ll tell you why you shouldn’t.”
Addison nods and frowns, trying to figure out where to start. “My stomach.”
“What size were you before the kids?”
“Four.” She sighs sadly, missing the days when those pants and skirts would fit.
“What size are you now?”
“Six.”
“And what size is the average female?”
“Eight or ten.” She scrunches her nose, knowing that he just painted her into a corner.
Mark gives her a pointed look and a raised eyebrow and steps toward her and gently touches his fingertips to the bare skin of her stomach. “Remember how bad you felt after your C-section with Kylie?” He waits for her nod. “Take that kind of pain but only for one jeans size lower.” He’s heard mixed reviews of the post-op pain, but there’s no harm in maybe exaggerating now. He takes his time tracing the toned muscles that lie just below her soft skin, dipping low to follow the line of her panties and back up to tease the bottom edge of her bra. Still moving slowly, he whispers in her ear, “what else?”
She takes a controlled breath and forces herself to keep her eyes open. “My boobs aren’t quite as perky as they used to be.”
“Mmm,” he hums into her neck and brings his hands up to cup her breasts through the black fabric. “You nursed three beautiful children,” he gently tugs on her earlobe with his teeth when he feels that she’s about to tell him not to use that argument. “And your boobs are just as fun as when I first met you,” he grins at her shiver and soft moan when he rubs a hard nipple through her bra. “Plus,” he sucks on a spot on her neck just hard enough to leave a mark that will last the night but not be there in the morning, “there’s some risk of desensitivity.”
“And I have wrinkles,” she says sadly. While she likes the game he’s playing, her main problem isn’t convincible by anything sexual.
“Ah,” Mark says quietly, knowing that it’s always been one of her biggest fears, and turns her around to face him. “But these mean that you know how to laugh.” He kisses the corners of her eyes. “And I like it when you laugh and crinkle your eyes when Dylan makes a funny face or Kylie looks just like you when she pouts about not getting another cookie. And these,” he kisses the corners of her mouth, “mean you know how to smile. And this one is entirely selfish. Because I can be having the worst day possible and all you have to do is smile at me and the day doesn’t suck nearly as much.” There was a time when he would scoff at saying anything remotely sentimental and there was a time when he would complain about a woman being able to make him say anything remotely sentimental but now is the time when he laughs because he’s found the woman who makes him say anything remotely sentimental without even trying.
Addison opens her eyes and smiles softly at him. “Thank you.”
He kisses her lightly. “You’re welcome.” Looking at his watch, he sighs. “I’m going to pick Annie up from the airport.” At her pout and scrunched up nose, he laughs. “And you should probably get some clothes on before we get back or one of the Three Musketeers wakes up.” A baseball game earlier in the day tired everyone out.
Addison smiles and shakes her head. At twelve, ten and eight, they’re more of a handful than they ever were when they were toddling around and fighting over toothpaste and laps. They seem to be well on their way to bypassing unfriendly sibling rivalry, instead favoring ganging up against their parents when it comes time to arguing about bedtimes, report cards, playing in the rain in March and how many days in a row it’s acceptable to eat leftover lasagna. Noah’s always the leader standing as tall as he can with Kylie fiercely by his side trying to use big words to make her sound like she knows what she’s talking about and Dylan speaking up when one of the other two needs to catch their breath. Some days it’s cute and other times it’s infuriating how hard they’ll try to argue something so miniscule as an extra sixty cents for a can of soda at lunch when a juice box was perfectly okay two days ago.
“Go. I’ll be dressed when you get back.”
--
“Call when you get to San Francisco.”
“You really want me to call you when it’s one in the morning here?” Addison raises an eyebrow at her mother-in-law (for all intents and purposes, really; Mallory Sloan is an incurable notorious alcoholic neither Addison nor Mark want around their children and his father ran off when he was ten, sparking the alcohol problem).
Annie gives Addison a firm look. “Yes. And when you get to Bangkok.”
“Okay, that one’s a ten-hour difference. But,” she catches Annie’s glare, “yes. We’ll call.”
“Good girl.”
Mark brings the last bag out to be tossed in the back of the cab. They debated having Annie drive them to the airport to make things easier but then they remembered that they have three children that they’re not quite willing to let stay home under the guidance of one rambunctious twelve year-old yet. “You gonna take good care of my kids?” Finally deeming the three of them old enough, Kylie healthy enough, and life calm enough to leave for more than three days, Addison and Mark decided to take two weeks for the honeymoon they’ve definitely deserved.
“That’s a stupid question.”
“I know. But I have to ask.” He looks over Annie’s shoulder and smiles as Addison tries to give a hug to all three children at once (and convince Noah that he isn’t thirteen yet so he doesn’t have the right to be a sullen teenager who sits out on big hugs). She eventually gives up and goes for the one-on-one. He hugs Annie and patiently waits his turn.
“I want an elephant,” Kylie requests of her father when she’s tucked tightly in his arms.
“Bring me back a sword!” Noah demands proudly.
Dylan thinks for a moment. “I want a monk,” he decides resolutely.
“I’ll do what I can on all three accounts,” Mark promises and gives them one last kiss each and then stands up to let Addison be a mom and do it again before he drags her to the cab so they won’t miss their flight or annoy any anal-retentive security guards.
--
Mark cups Addison’s cheek and smiles softly at the sound of her heavy breathing, the only sound in the room besides the bustle of the Bangkok streets below filtering up through their open window. “Hey, beautiful,” he whispers when she opens her still-clouded eyes.
Addison smiles back, biting her lip just a little as she basks in the glow of her husband’s love and the warm sensations still pulsating between her legs and throughout her body. Their sex life is healthy but usually coupled with effort to keep quiet or worry that someone will need something or desperate hope that a pager won’t go off. Though it’s good at home, it’s fantastic to simply let go and be in the moment without having to be on guard. She reaches her hand up and cups the back of his neck, gently massaging the skin just below his hairline as she lightly pulls him down for a kiss. “I love you,” she breathes against his lips.
“I love you, too.” He rolls off of her onto his back, smiling when she curls into his side and rests her head against his chest. He does what he can to tug a sheet somewhat over them. Stroking her hair he presses a kiss to her forehead. “Stop worrying about them. Annie is completely capable.”
She sighs and laughs quietly. “I know. But it’s in my nature to worry.”
Mark chuckles and trails his fingers down her sides, teasing her breasts. At her soft gasp, he smiles and gently turns them back over. She’s still a little uncomfortable about the way her body has aged and he’s still determined to convince her otherwise. He dips his head down and teases her nipples with his tongue as his hands slide down to urge her legs open.
“Mark...” She reaches down to cover his hands, enjoying the sex but not wanting to spend the entire time in the hotel naked.
“You’re going to deny me one of my favorite things?” He slips a finger just inside of her.
Her breath hitches in her throat and she lets his hands go and wiggles her hips. “Not as long as you wander around and get lost with me later.”
“Deal,” he grins into her stomach and hooks her legs over his shoulders.
--
“Noah Alexander Montgomery-Sloan, you are not a teenager yet. You are not allowed to sulk in the corner.” Annie points the butter knife at him and, upon looking at it, thinks that her point would be better made if there weren’t orange icing at the end of it.
“Please?” Kylie looks up at him with a smile that threatens to turn into an angry pout if he doesn’t give in.
With a sigh because his sister has him wrapped around her little finger, he uncrosses his arms and pushes off the wall and sits down at the table across from Dylan and next to Kylie. Though still convinced that this is some ploy to keep him an active member of the family while his parents are out of town and unable to enforce anything, he picks up a pumpkin-shaped cookie and a butter knife and starts spreading orange icing around it. He looks over at Kylie’s line of perfect pumpkins, each with a chocolate chip face and green stem, and shakes his head because he and Dylan are barely capable of getting the icing on moderately evenly without getting it all over themselves.
On impulse, when Annie’s back is turned as she makes more icing, Dylan puts an extra large amount of icing on his knife and pulls back the light metal as best he can and lets go, giggling madly as a spot of icing lands right above Noah’s left eye. He soon regrets it when Noah creates an icing slingshot of his own and retaliates with green. Kylie shoots a look at Annie and, determining that the woman is unable to hear anything over the sound of the mixer, gets in on the fight after watching several rounds from the sideline. She dips two fingers into the white they were using for ghosts and smushes it into Noah’s hair and that’s when Annie decides to turn around.
Kylie shrieks when Noah swipes orange on her nose and giggles as she trips over her feet and tumbles onto the floor in an effort to get away. She looks up at Annie for help when she sees her brothers whisper behind their hands but her grandmother simply shakes her head: you got yourself into this, kid. Kylie reaches up and grabs one of the bowls of green so that she’s at least prepared when the boys swoop down to the floor and chase her into the corner.
Annie shakes her head in disbelief as she watches the three kids rub icing into each other’s hair and try to get it over every visible patch of skin. She remembers epic icing fights and flour and powdered sugar used as blinding agents as her own children raced around the kitchen during the cookie baking seasons. As long as they helped clean it up, she never had a problem with it. And because of her strict enforcement of the clean up rule, the incident with the flour and powdered sugar was an isolated one. Tempted to join them, she swipes her finger in the fresh bowl of icing but stops and licks off the sweet substance instead. It’s only in the last year and a half that Kylie’s been healthy and strong enough to be able to play around with her brothers like this and it won’t be too long before Noah decides he’s too cool to tackle his sister with a handful of orange icing so she steps back and lets them have at it.
--
“If I can’t bring my daughter a full-size elephant, I’m not bringing back a sword for my son.” Addison stares firmly at Mark, unwilling to back down on this argument. If he were older or more interested in the culture and meaning behind the weapon and wouldn’t be inclined to wave it around at every moment possible, she’d put a little more thought toward the idea. As it stands, Noah is twelve and of the age where culture and history don’t matter a whole lot when it comes to owning cool stuff.
“Fine,” Mark concedes. He agrees with her completely but, having been a twelve year-old boy, knows exactly how cool it would be to have a Thai sword on his bedroom wall and his inner twelve year-old boy wants to live vicariously through Noah just a little. “Got any ideas about Dylan’s monk?”
Running a brush through her wet hair, Addison raises an eyebrow. “Where did that even come from?” Though she doesn’t really mind her youngest son’s interest in religion, she really does wonder what it stems from given that he has no strong religious influence in his life or real exposure to it.
Mark shrugs. “Not a clue.” He circles an arm around her waist and pulls her to him after she’s finished pulling her hair up in a loose braid. He shakes his head at himself. “I really love you.”
Addison smiles softly. “What brought that on?”
“You turned me into a total sap.”
“Good.” She smiles and kisses his cheek. “I like it when you say stuff like that.”
--
“You feeling okay?” Noah slips into Kylie’s room when they’re supposed to be asleep and Annie’s downstairs reading. Dylan follows a few seconds later, not wanting to risk causing too much noise in case Annie’s trying to pay attention to the goings-on of upstairs. Both brothers have noticed their sister being careful about the way she carries herself and uncharacteristically quiet and it worries them.
Kylie puts down her book but doesn’t turn off the flashlight. “No.”
“What’s wrong?” Noah asks, suddenly very concerned. He feels Dylan tense next to him; the younger boy is quieter but no less protective of her.
She shrugs. “I’m tired. And I feel yucky.” She knows that there’s something else extremely wrong, but she doesn’t want to tell her brothers because they’ll make her tell Annie (and if she doesn’t, they will) who will then call her parents who desperately need the time away and she doesn’t want them to have to cut that short (because she knows that if they get wind of her so much as having a fever they’ll fly back) if it’s nothing.
As if reading her mind, Dylan speaks up quietly. “Kylie, if you think you’re sick again...” He sounds so much older than his ten and a half years. They all do.
“I’m not!” She protests firmly but quietly. She refuses to be sick again; it wasn’t fun the first time and the last month she was there she became friends with an older girl who was there for her second time and it didn’t seem to be any better.
“Kylie,” Noah says softly. “You look like shit...”
“Watch your language,” Kylie says on impulse, mimicking her mother.
“...you’re dragging, those bruises on your arms have been there for three weeks and it’s November and you’re sleeping without the covers.” While he doesn’t want to believe that she’s relapsed, he doesn’t want everyone else to think that she’s wearing sweatshirts during the day just because she’s cold.
She bites her lip against tears. She’s almost at the four-year mark and she knows that it’s really rare for it to come back after she’s been in remission this long but she knows that it can. “Wait until they get back,” she whimpers.
“K-Bug,” Noah starts; he staunchly refuses to let anyone else call her by the nickname.
“No.” She looks up at her brothers in desperation. “If something’s wrong, I want them here.”
--
“Do I need to carry you in?” Mark grins at Addison as he nudges her awake from his shoulder when they pull up to their house.
“Maybe.” She mumbles and drags herself out of the car but her face lights up when her daughter nearly knocks her over with a running power hug and her sons tackle Mark at the same time. “Oooh, hey girl,” she hugs her tightly. “Did you miss me?” She kisses Kylie’s temple as the girl nods vigorously.
Exhausted, Addison tumbles into bed next to Mark, barely having enough energy to brush her teeth. She snuggles up against him and tucks her head under his chin. His arms are warm around her and she smiles contently as she whispers that she loves him and quickly drifts off to sleep.
Mark kisses her forehead and returns the sentiment. He’s sad to leave their vacation but he’s thrilled to be home. Part of him wonders where the womanizing, self-centered Mark Sloan with an attitude who showed his feelings by doing the exact opposite went and when he was replaced with the Mark Sloan who puts three small children and one beautiful woman in front of absolutely everything and who can’t wait to get home at the end of the day and who does things like flowers and chocolate. The part of him that doesn’t wonder doesn’t care.
--
“Kylie?” Mark looks at his daughter, concerned at her sudden and complete lack of color. He forgets about their dinner and walks over to her.
“I don’t feel good,” she murmurs and blinks against vertigo and spots across her vision.
Mark gathers his senses and picks her up off the chair and quickly lays her down on the living room couch a few steps away. She loses consciousness in his arms and wakes up a few seconds after he has her situated on the couch. He touches the back of her hand to her forehead and frowns at her feeling a bit warm. Shaking his head at her pulse and that the color in her face is kind of green, he really wishes that Addison wasn’t working late. “How long have those been there?” He brushes his fingers against a smattering of bruises on her arm that she’s kept covered up by a sweatshirt lately. His heart sinks at the desperate look in her eyes. “Kylie?”
“I don’t want to be sick again,” she whispers, several tears running down her cheeks.
“Oh, hey.” Mark sits on the couch next to her and wiggles around so she can lie with her head on his chest as she cries. “I love you, Kylie.” He holds his little girl to him, rubbing her back soothingly.
Addison smiles at the sight in front of her as she walks in a few hours later. Their boys are elsewhere, one at a friend’s house and the other at a school field trip sleepover at the zoo, but the relationship she loves watching the most is that between her husband and her daughter; it warms her soul to see his strong arms encircling someone so small and to listen to Kylie’s tinkling laugh as he does voices when they curl up and read books together. But her smile soon disappears when she sees how tightly Mark is holding onto her and his eyes open and she sees the expression within them. “What happened?” She sits on the edge of the couch and runs her fingers through the girl’s hair.
“She passed out a couple times,” he whispers. “And,” he points at her arm.
Addison’s shoulders slump and she closes her eyes and sighs. “Dammit.”
--
“It’s back, isn’t it?” Kylie looks up as her brothers sneak past their parents and her doctors and slip into her room. They took her in to get blood drawn but an incident with fainting in art class landed her back in the hospital the same day and her blood got pushed to the top of the pile.
Noah ignores Dylan’s quieting slap on his arm and nods, figuring that she knows anyway and she might as well hear it from someone who isn’t her doctor or about to cry. He climbs up into the bed that would be too small for him on his own and crowds in with his sister to give her a hug. “I’m sorry, K-Bug.”
She nods and leans her head on his shoulder and motions for Dylan to join the Montgomery-Sloan kid pile on her bed. He gently navigates around an IV line to balance precariously on the edge by her leg. She takes comfort in her two brothers, being strong when both parents are falling apart or doing a massively bad job at hiding that they’re about to.
The two boys immediately move to leave the room when Addison, Mark and Drs. Gold and McLeod walk in but Kylie grabs their arms and her eyes beg them to stay with her. Noah agrees quickly and Dylan agrees because Noah agrees and he doesn’t want to be that kid in the hall who didn’t want to hear bad news. It only takes one glance to see how tightly her parents are holding each other’s hands to tell Kylie just how bad it is.
Addison finds herself unable to talk, unable to say anything at all. No explanations, no comforting words, no I love you. She finds herself unable to move from that spot, not a millimeter one way or the other outside of the white tile she stands on. Terrified, she listens to the doctor repeat everything he told her before but in kid-friendly terms and grips Mark’s hand even tighter. She spares a glance at him when she feels him gently rubbing her palm with his thumb, doing his best to calm her down, and he gives her a quick but comforting nod.
The more Dr. Gold talks, the more scared Kylie gets and her parents see it. Addison’s heart breaks when her daughter looks over at her, her blue eyes filled with tears. She’s been through it before, but now words like transplant and radiation are being tossed around and Kylie knows that along with transplant comes donor and sometimes those are hard to find.
“Everybody out,” Mark says after the two doctors have said their final apologies and encouragements and left. He lets Noah and Dylan have a last hug with Kylie and then he bends down to give her a quick close hug and a promise that he’ll be back later. He kisses away one of her tears and assures her that she’s going to be okay and then follows his sons out the door to leave mother alone with daughter.
Kylie scoots over as best she can and rests her head on Addison’s chest the moment her mother is settled in against the pillows. She closes her eyes and lets Addison’s gentle strokes of her hair (hair she knows is going to fall out sometime soon) lull her into feeling calm again.
“I told you six years ago,” she starts in a whisper, “and I’m telling you again now. I promise you, you will be okay.”
Though Kylie doesn’t remember the first time, she believes that it happened. She knows better now, she knows what doctors in this ward are and aren’t supposed to say and that nothing - not even a cold - is guaranteed to be okay. But she snuggles tighter into Addison’s chest and knows that her mother doesn’t lie.
A Posteriori :: Sitting on the Moon