(no subject)
Title: 20th Century Towers
Part: 2/2
Rating: R
Pairing(s)/Characters: Addison, Alex/Lexie, Derek, Derek/Addison, Derek/April, Jackson/Cristina, Mark/Addison, Mark/Callie/Arizona, Owen/Teddy, Sam/Addison, and random assists from various other characters.
Summary: That ten song challenge thing, times two. Crossover, and finale(s) heavy. Previous.
Mark/Addison
“The Crane Dance”, Ludovico Einaudi
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
It's during a two in the morning feeding that Addison looks over at her husband with a broad smile and announces that she loves him. She always secretly feared she'd be doing this solo (even when she wasn't alone). The spit up in her hair, and her complete lack of memory beyond the last time their daughter ate, the piles of laundry littering the floor, and overflowing sink have all proved to be a non-issue for them.
It doesn't seem to matter that no one is into sleeping anymore (something Mark attributes to getting through his internship), or that coffee has become a food group of its own. The fact that there is no food in the fridge, only hard alcohol in the freezer, and barren shelves aren't even on their radar.
He thought she'd be driving him crazy about every little nitpicking detail, but he finds her oddly content with motherhood and the chaos it breeds. And while she spent the entire adoption process convinced that he would abandon her when this got hard, she is pleasantly surprised (and relieved) to be entirely in the wrong.
Addison feels Mark's strong arms weak with fatigue as they loop around her and drag her toward his chest, and she can sense the kiss on the top of her ratted hair before it even lands. When the bottle runs dry, when their baby's eyes droop shut uncontrollably against her shirt, Addison slouches a little and makes herself at ease for the next few hours, minutes, or seconds; whatever may be provided to them by the little girl that now runs the household.
And she'll take it, and him, in a manner and fashion she never mapped out all those years ago when she declared “I do” to an era that is now nothing more than a friendly fog of memories and places she never visits.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Jackson/Cristina
“Last Day of Winter”- Pelican
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
When he shows up unannounced at her door one day in February to reclaim his favor, she's taken by surprise.
She's assaulted.
Pinned to the door frame, a specific wedge of wood digging into her back. His hands dip into her hair and wind carelessly, his lips seem to have a mind of their own, slowly working against the rest of his violent body, teasing, nipping, enjoying their time on hers.
She shoves him away the first chance she gets, but later draws him into the kitchen tugging on his shirt.
Saying they're even tomorrow morning, scratches down his back, his lower teeth imprinted on her inner thigh, will be a whole hell of a lot easier than saying she enjoyed it.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
April, Derek/April
“Glittering Blackness” - Explosions in the Sky
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
She rationalized that it was easy to idolize a man she spent the better part of a year working very closely with. And she reasoned that it was perfectly understandable that in her early gullible years as a resident that it was only natural that a man of such great talent, and composure would catch her eye. She imagined that it was this, his ability and not his gorgeously tousled waves and oddly adorable nose that made him so attractive.
Yes, it was the fact that he could get up in the morning, shaggy, and come to work presentable enough to scrub in on an eight hour surgery and then turn around and go concentrate on board meetings and mindless paperwork, that made him so damn endearing.
It was all logical.
And she'd had enough therapy to assess her own situation, and enough to realize, now looking at the indestructible Derek C. Shepherd, struggling to recover from his own demons, that perhaps it was more of the outward appearance of focus and control and less of the inner beauty that made him captivating. Because the person she's wheeling out to his wife, the one who just signed his own release forms, isn't the person she fell for.
He isn't anything but a shell.
But then, she supposes, it would be hard to say that any of them are still the things they once were.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Alex/Lexie
“A Message of Avarice Rained Down and Carried Us Away Into False Dreams of Endless Riches” - Red Sparowes
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
After the shootings, after the hype, after the semblance of life came back into focus, she was really the only thing that still made sense. And it gave him an awkward stumble forward into a land where he made breakfast (shitty toast and orange juice) and took it to her in bed, and actually remembered what her favorite color was instead of which position seemed to make her scream the loudest while he was trying not to orgasm too quickly.
It was after the world ended.
After he recovered physically, after she found the courage to breakdown in his arms, he finally felt the connection. Alex gave in to the dates, the lazy movie nights, the fighting, and the initial trust that came with any new relationship. And while he was hardly accustomed to relying on a damn thing besides himself, it was nice, he found, to have a little backup when Shepherd got annoying and whiny downstairs on the couch. Plus, she stayed in his bed so Meredith couldn't.
Because what he didn't need was other people's drama, their bullshit to come confuse his sudden pleasure with domesticity. Instead he was greeted with a hardy slap on the back from his own hurricane in the form of Mark Sloan riding his ass, trying to steal his girlfriend out from under his nose.
Secretly, after the world ended, he couldn't blame the guy. That was, until he came home to find his once Plastics hero unmercifully wound in one of his old sweatshirts drinking coffee out of Derek's favorite cup.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Derek/Addison
“Prisoners of Circumstance” - A Northern Chorus
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“That's because she hates me,” Addison reminds her husband, shuffling their five month old nephew onto her hip and groaning when he sharply grasps her long hair.
“My mother loves you Addie,” Derek grins, kissing her cheek.
“Hardly,” Addison retorts, swishing the baby out of his grasp, and rushing into the other room to pick up before the entourage of Shepherds can arrive. Nancy has been in town for three days, visiting, playing well with others (unlike every other person), and is now out Christmas shopping with her husband, enjoying the light dusting of snow that December is coating the city with.
“It will be fine,” he assures her, digging his fingers into her shoulders and grinning at Jacob who squeals his reply loudly. “We should get one of these,” he remarks moments later, the baby's warm fingers wrapped over his thumb.
“We should,” Addison agrees hesitantly, before turning around to face him. “Later, though.”
“Later,” Derek complies easily. They have forever for babies and picket fences, baseball games and sleepovers. Now, they have work, and each other. The knock at the door pulls him from his reverie before he can sneak in a kiss and then suddenly he's swept up into a different world as his family barges through the entryway, not bothering to kick out of their shoes, ice melting into puddles on Addison's new rug.
“Addison,” Carolyn greets with a suspiciously warm smile. “Jacob, there's my snuggle boy.”
“Hello,” Addison returns, handing over the baby, her husband rounding through his sisters, nowhere near close enough to fall back on.
With a sigh she follows them all further into the house, using the niceties she was taught young, and happy to have them if for no other reason than knowing how to deal with mother in-laws who hate you simply because you were born.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Mark/Callie/Arizona
“What Fell Down from the Moon Last Night” - Joy Wants Eternity
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
It starts as a friend thing, because good God he isn't getting any younger (though he won't admit it), and she once described to him that she wants children so badly that it physically hurts. She makes funny faces at kids in carts at the grocery store when they all go on Sundays for their weekly trip, and he laughs when children fall down in parking lots. Callie melts at the sight of newborns in the nursery and Mark finds himself visiting more often without her than he'll ever allow anyone to know.
She thinks they'd make pretty babies. She thinks she'd rather actually know the sperm donor. She thinks Arizona won't mind.
And she's right up until about the seventh month of her pregnancy, two little babies flipping and kicking around inside of her endlessly.
And then it's a problem that Mark sometimes sleeps over, that he joins them for every check up and measuring. It's an issue that Arizona believes can't be resolved, because their bond is growing, hers is weakening, and she has a sudden respect for how much Mark Sloan would like to be involved in his children's lives.
And she can't handle that. So she leaves, a thief in the night, with nothing more than a note that explains nothing, but wishes them well in a manner that causes Callie to crash her lips into his and yank off the tight shirt that has been driving her crazy for the better part of a week.
It wasn't the solution or resolution they were all looking for when they began this asinine idea, but as Mark trails his fingers along the slope hiding his kids, Callie realizes that it might be something worth pursuing anyway, even at the risk of breaking her already fractured heart.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Addison, Sam/Addison
“The Sun's Condolences” - Gifts From Enola
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
The sun is shameless about its eternal joy on the morning Addison wakes with sharp cramps. It's their through the whole unrelenting process that leaves her in a ball, wrecked with tears, shaking over her lost chance at a child.
It hurts everywhere as she climbs into the shower, attempting to scrub the thought of cribs and pacifiers off her mind.
Sam is in the other room, asleep, she presumes. It was his idea, half of his biology.
He said they should try, he said they would never know until they gave it a shot.
She finds herself holding her own hair away from the drain as she retches last night's pasta. She steadies her own hands against the slippery tile, banging her head back once, twice, three times until she thinks she may pass out.
He told her that they deserved a break from the rain, that it was their turn for some good stuff.
She thinks now, hunched into the corner, hiding, it wasn't worth the aching disparity of finding out.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Owen/Teddy
“The Slowest Way of Saying So Little” - The Six Parts Seven
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
She hasn't seen him in ten days. And of course there has been a lot going on, and she has been monitoring Alex Karev at another hospital, but after the whole mess all she wanted to do was hug him until they couldn't breathe anymore. Instead, she told him it was fine.
She gave her blessing, to something that wasn't hers to give in the first place.
Which is why she's surprised when the eleventh day comes and goes as well. She's heard updates, perked up at the whispers circulating the halls. He's staying with Yang, recovering.
Teddy didn't realize that giving Owen up meant losing him as her friend, though she should have seen it coming. So she buries herself in work for the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth day, until there he is, rounding on patients like he never left at all.
The audacity is astounding, and she tells him as much when they find a private moment scrubbing in.
She can see him trying to leave, trying to hurry, but its pointless. When she demands to know why, after everything, he couldn't pick up the damn phone, he just looks away.
And she knows, but she makes him say it anyway. Because even when she wants to fight, kick, and pull Cristina's hair, when she wants to shout that he was hers first, and when all she wants to do is kiss him, just to see what it would be like, she can't.
He unceremoniously asks her to leave, nearly pleads, and up until the seventeenth day Teddy thinks she may actually grant his request, make it easier on everyone around them. But then, she remembers, that she came to Seattle for herself (even if she stayed for him), and she's too tired of the triangle nonsense to slink off in quiet resignation.
He was hers first, as a friend, and she'll work her hardest to keep it that way. At least, until he asks her again.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Addison, Derek
“Verse For Forgiveness (Instrumental)” - Hammock
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
She's in Seattle when she hears the news, consulting on a pair of conjoined twins that she would love to deliver and help separate, tricky as it may be. And she should be overjoyed to hear that her ex-husband's world is falling apart, his perfect wife taken up with another after a lengthy downfall, but she isn't.
Because she never really started hating him enough to be spiteful, only hurt.
And disliking Meredith was a futile task she hadn't the energy for at the time. Besides, she could only imagine the things Derek had said, if anything, to the poor child to get her to stick around.
She sees him in the cafeteria later in the day, her head pounding with probabilities and anxiety. He's eating alone. He isn't the chief. His hair is having a rough week.
And he looks like he could just use some sort of friend, so without much thought one way or another, she sets her tray next to his, nudges his shoulder until he scoots and then slides onto the chair next to him. They don't say anything. She steals his pudding and he takes the cucumbers off her salad without asking.
And when she's done she gets up and heads to throw away her trash, his head slumped toward the ground. She calls out to him, in front of the entire gossip mill, to come help her figure out this case, partly because she needs a neurosurgeon anyway, and partly out of resonating sympathy.
Because she knows what it feels like to be the center of the universe when all you want to do is hide in a black cloud and forget you were ever alive, but moreover because she knows exactly what it feels like to watch the person you love gallivant around with someone they'd rather spend their time with, going on as if you never existed in the first place.
And she's now a big enough person to let it wash away.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Addison
“The Tomorrow We Were Promised Yesterday” - Because of Ghosts
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Wait, please!” Addison screams at the four year old rushing through the house, half of her hair braided, the other half flopping carelessly on her head.
“School!” she shouts back, jumping to reach her mother's car keys off the counter, the doors to the beach wide open.
Addison watches as her daughter's interest fades into catching the kitty, poor Milo, who has been more forgiving than she foresaw. It's five-thirty, she has no caffeine in her system, and she doesn't think Dolan slept more than twenty minutes all night. She distinctly recalls being asked when school was starting at one, and at three, and being kicked awake at five until she just gave up and herded the brunette into her new socks and freshly dry cleaned outfit.
It was a big day, for both of them.
For Dolan, kindergarten. For Addison, the two year anniversary of finally achieving the dream of a child to call her own.
It isn't easy, and it wasn't ideal, costing her a great relationship with a good man who now remains her friend, but it was the only constant, her ache for a baby. And at her lowest low, she decided to fill out another round of adoption paperwork because the only thing it was wasting was her sanity, and some unfortunate fifteen year old girl picked her when the going got tough, a glorious moment, no one to share it with.
As she wrangles Dolan into nicely petting 'kitty', she quickly braids the other half of her wavy hair, and thinks how things could have gone better. Certainly it would be nice to have a man in the picture to hold her hands, or free them when need be. And it would be great if she had less working mother's guilt, but her job wasn't a sacrifice she could give. So they strike an odd compromise, Dolan keeping her on her toes constantly, learning something new every second, Addison trying to catch up, completely mesmerized.
There's a heap of toys in her office, hiding behind the pristine desk, and Sam doesn't come around as often anymore because it still stings, but as she finally releases Dolan into a pack of her new classmates, the child more outgoing than any offspring Addison could have ever produced, she knows it was all worth it.
She's finally arrived, and there's a peace in her mind, in her soul that Addison just can't put a price on.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Part: 2/2
Rating: R
Pairing(s)/Characters: Addison, Alex/Lexie, Derek, Derek/Addison, Derek/April, Jackson/Cristina, Mark/Addison, Mark/Callie/Arizona, Owen/Teddy, Sam/Addison, and random assists from various other characters.
Summary: That ten song challenge thing, times two. Crossover, and finale(s) heavy. Previous.
Mark/Addison
“The Crane Dance”, Ludovico Einaudi
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
It's during a two in the morning feeding that Addison looks over at her husband with a broad smile and announces that she loves him. She always secretly feared she'd be doing this solo (even when she wasn't alone). The spit up in her hair, and her complete lack of memory beyond the last time their daughter ate, the piles of laundry littering the floor, and overflowing sink have all proved to be a non-issue for them.
It doesn't seem to matter that no one is into sleeping anymore (something Mark attributes to getting through his internship), or that coffee has become a food group of its own. The fact that there is no food in the fridge, only hard alcohol in the freezer, and barren shelves aren't even on their radar.
He thought she'd be driving him crazy about every little nitpicking detail, but he finds her oddly content with motherhood and the chaos it breeds. And while she spent the entire adoption process convinced that he would abandon her when this got hard, she is pleasantly surprised (and relieved) to be entirely in the wrong.
Addison feels Mark's strong arms weak with fatigue as they loop around her and drag her toward his chest, and she can sense the kiss on the top of her ratted hair before it even lands. When the bottle runs dry, when their baby's eyes droop shut uncontrollably against her shirt, Addison slouches a little and makes herself at ease for the next few hours, minutes, or seconds; whatever may be provided to them by the little girl that now runs the household.
And she'll take it, and him, in a manner and fashion she never mapped out all those years ago when she declared “I do” to an era that is now nothing more than a friendly fog of memories and places she never visits.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Jackson/Cristina
“Last Day of Winter”- Pelican
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
When he shows up unannounced at her door one day in February to reclaim his favor, she's taken by surprise.
She's assaulted.
Pinned to the door frame, a specific wedge of wood digging into her back. His hands dip into her hair and wind carelessly, his lips seem to have a mind of their own, slowly working against the rest of his violent body, teasing, nipping, enjoying their time on hers.
She shoves him away the first chance she gets, but later draws him into the kitchen tugging on his shirt.
Saying they're even tomorrow morning, scratches down his back, his lower teeth imprinted on her inner thigh, will be a whole hell of a lot easier than saying she enjoyed it.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
April, Derek/April
“Glittering Blackness” - Explosions in the Sky
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
She rationalized that it was easy to idolize a man she spent the better part of a year working very closely with. And she reasoned that it was perfectly understandable that in her early gullible years as a resident that it was only natural that a man of such great talent, and composure would catch her eye. She imagined that it was this, his ability and not his gorgeously tousled waves and oddly adorable nose that made him so attractive.
Yes, it was the fact that he could get up in the morning, shaggy, and come to work presentable enough to scrub in on an eight hour surgery and then turn around and go concentrate on board meetings and mindless paperwork, that made him so damn endearing.
It was all logical.
And she'd had enough therapy to assess her own situation, and enough to realize, now looking at the indestructible Derek C. Shepherd, struggling to recover from his own demons, that perhaps it was more of the outward appearance of focus and control and less of the inner beauty that made him captivating. Because the person she's wheeling out to his wife, the one who just signed his own release forms, isn't the person she fell for.
He isn't anything but a shell.
But then, she supposes, it would be hard to say that any of them are still the things they once were.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Alex/Lexie
“A Message of Avarice Rained Down and Carried Us Away Into False Dreams of Endless Riches” - Red Sparowes
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
After the shootings, after the hype, after the semblance of life came back into focus, she was really the only thing that still made sense. And it gave him an awkward stumble forward into a land where he made breakfast (shitty toast and orange juice) and took it to her in bed, and actually remembered what her favorite color was instead of which position seemed to make her scream the loudest while he was trying not to orgasm too quickly.
It was after the world ended.
After he recovered physically, after she found the courage to breakdown in his arms, he finally felt the connection. Alex gave in to the dates, the lazy movie nights, the fighting, and the initial trust that came with any new relationship. And while he was hardly accustomed to relying on a damn thing besides himself, it was nice, he found, to have a little backup when Shepherd got annoying and whiny downstairs on the couch. Plus, she stayed in his bed so Meredith couldn't.
Because what he didn't need was other people's drama, their bullshit to come confuse his sudden pleasure with domesticity. Instead he was greeted with a hardy slap on the back from his own hurricane in the form of Mark Sloan riding his ass, trying to steal his girlfriend out from under his nose.
Secretly, after the world ended, he couldn't blame the guy. That was, until he came home to find his once Plastics hero unmercifully wound in one of his old sweatshirts drinking coffee out of Derek's favorite cup.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Derek/Addison
“Prisoners of Circumstance” - A Northern Chorus
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“That's because she hates me,” Addison reminds her husband, shuffling their five month old nephew onto her hip and groaning when he sharply grasps her long hair.
“My mother loves you Addie,” Derek grins, kissing her cheek.
“Hardly,” Addison retorts, swishing the baby out of his grasp, and rushing into the other room to pick up before the entourage of Shepherds can arrive. Nancy has been in town for three days, visiting, playing well with others (unlike every other person), and is now out Christmas shopping with her husband, enjoying the light dusting of snow that December is coating the city with.
“It will be fine,” he assures her, digging his fingers into her shoulders and grinning at Jacob who squeals his reply loudly. “We should get one of these,” he remarks moments later, the baby's warm fingers wrapped over his thumb.
“We should,” Addison agrees hesitantly, before turning around to face him. “Later, though.”
“Later,” Derek complies easily. They have forever for babies and picket fences, baseball games and sleepovers. Now, they have work, and each other. The knock at the door pulls him from his reverie before he can sneak in a kiss and then suddenly he's swept up into a different world as his family barges through the entryway, not bothering to kick out of their shoes, ice melting into puddles on Addison's new rug.
“Addison,” Carolyn greets with a suspiciously warm smile. “Jacob, there's my snuggle boy.”
“Hello,” Addison returns, handing over the baby, her husband rounding through his sisters, nowhere near close enough to fall back on.
With a sigh she follows them all further into the house, using the niceties she was taught young, and happy to have them if for no other reason than knowing how to deal with mother in-laws who hate you simply because you were born.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Mark/Callie/Arizona
“What Fell Down from the Moon Last Night” - Joy Wants Eternity
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
It starts as a friend thing, because good God he isn't getting any younger (though he won't admit it), and she once described to him that she wants children so badly that it physically hurts. She makes funny faces at kids in carts at the grocery store when they all go on Sundays for their weekly trip, and he laughs when children fall down in parking lots. Callie melts at the sight of newborns in the nursery and Mark finds himself visiting more often without her than he'll ever allow anyone to know.
She thinks they'd make pretty babies. She thinks she'd rather actually know the sperm donor. She thinks Arizona won't mind.
And she's right up until about the seventh month of her pregnancy, two little babies flipping and kicking around inside of her endlessly.
And then it's a problem that Mark sometimes sleeps over, that he joins them for every check up and measuring. It's an issue that Arizona believes can't be resolved, because their bond is growing, hers is weakening, and she has a sudden respect for how much Mark Sloan would like to be involved in his children's lives.
And she can't handle that. So she leaves, a thief in the night, with nothing more than a note that explains nothing, but wishes them well in a manner that causes Callie to crash her lips into his and yank off the tight shirt that has been driving her crazy for the better part of a week.
It wasn't the solution or resolution they were all looking for when they began this asinine idea, but as Mark trails his fingers along the slope hiding his kids, Callie realizes that it might be something worth pursuing anyway, even at the risk of breaking her already fractured heart.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Addison, Sam/Addison
“The Sun's Condolences” - Gifts From Enola
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
The sun is shameless about its eternal joy on the morning Addison wakes with sharp cramps. It's their through the whole unrelenting process that leaves her in a ball, wrecked with tears, shaking over her lost chance at a child.
It hurts everywhere as she climbs into the shower, attempting to scrub the thought of cribs and pacifiers off her mind.
Sam is in the other room, asleep, she presumes. It was his idea, half of his biology.
He said they should try, he said they would never know until they gave it a shot.
She finds herself holding her own hair away from the drain as she retches last night's pasta. She steadies her own hands against the slippery tile, banging her head back once, twice, three times until she thinks she may pass out.
He told her that they deserved a break from the rain, that it was their turn for some good stuff.
She thinks now, hunched into the corner, hiding, it wasn't worth the aching disparity of finding out.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Owen/Teddy
“The Slowest Way of Saying So Little” - The Six Parts Seven
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
She hasn't seen him in ten days. And of course there has been a lot going on, and she has been monitoring Alex Karev at another hospital, but after the whole mess all she wanted to do was hug him until they couldn't breathe anymore. Instead, she told him it was fine.
She gave her blessing, to something that wasn't hers to give in the first place.
Which is why she's surprised when the eleventh day comes and goes as well. She's heard updates, perked up at the whispers circulating the halls. He's staying with Yang, recovering.
Teddy didn't realize that giving Owen up meant losing him as her friend, though she should have seen it coming. So she buries herself in work for the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth day, until there he is, rounding on patients like he never left at all.
The audacity is astounding, and she tells him as much when they find a private moment scrubbing in.
She can see him trying to leave, trying to hurry, but its pointless. When she demands to know why, after everything, he couldn't pick up the damn phone, he just looks away.
And she knows, but she makes him say it anyway. Because even when she wants to fight, kick, and pull Cristina's hair, when she wants to shout that he was hers first, and when all she wants to do is kiss him, just to see what it would be like, she can't.
He unceremoniously asks her to leave, nearly pleads, and up until the seventeenth day Teddy thinks she may actually grant his request, make it easier on everyone around them. But then, she remembers, that she came to Seattle for herself (even if she stayed for him), and she's too tired of the triangle nonsense to slink off in quiet resignation.
He was hers first, as a friend, and she'll work her hardest to keep it that way. At least, until he asks her again.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Addison, Derek
“Verse For Forgiveness (Instrumental)” - Hammock
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
She's in Seattle when she hears the news, consulting on a pair of conjoined twins that she would love to deliver and help separate, tricky as it may be. And she should be overjoyed to hear that her ex-husband's world is falling apart, his perfect wife taken up with another after a lengthy downfall, but she isn't.
Because she never really started hating him enough to be spiteful, only hurt.
And disliking Meredith was a futile task she hadn't the energy for at the time. Besides, she could only imagine the things Derek had said, if anything, to the poor child to get her to stick around.
She sees him in the cafeteria later in the day, her head pounding with probabilities and anxiety. He's eating alone. He isn't the chief. His hair is having a rough week.
And he looks like he could just use some sort of friend, so without much thought one way or another, she sets her tray next to his, nudges his shoulder until he scoots and then slides onto the chair next to him. They don't say anything. She steals his pudding and he takes the cucumbers off her salad without asking.
And when she's done she gets up and heads to throw away her trash, his head slumped toward the ground. She calls out to him, in front of the entire gossip mill, to come help her figure out this case, partly because she needs a neurosurgeon anyway, and partly out of resonating sympathy.
Because she knows what it feels like to be the center of the universe when all you want to do is hide in a black cloud and forget you were ever alive, but moreover because she knows exactly what it feels like to watch the person you love gallivant around with someone they'd rather spend their time with, going on as if you never existed in the first place.
And she's now a big enough person to let it wash away.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Addison
“The Tomorrow We Were Promised Yesterday” - Because of Ghosts
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Wait, please!” Addison screams at the four year old rushing through the house, half of her hair braided, the other half flopping carelessly on her head.
“School!” she shouts back, jumping to reach her mother's car keys off the counter, the doors to the beach wide open.
Addison watches as her daughter's interest fades into catching the kitty, poor Milo, who has been more forgiving than she foresaw. It's five-thirty, she has no caffeine in her system, and she doesn't think Dolan slept more than twenty minutes all night. She distinctly recalls being asked when school was starting at one, and at three, and being kicked awake at five until she just gave up and herded the brunette into her new socks and freshly dry cleaned outfit.
It was a big day, for both of them.
For Dolan, kindergarten. For Addison, the two year anniversary of finally achieving the dream of a child to call her own.
It isn't easy, and it wasn't ideal, costing her a great relationship with a good man who now remains her friend, but it was the only constant, her ache for a baby. And at her lowest low, she decided to fill out another round of adoption paperwork because the only thing it was wasting was her sanity, and some unfortunate fifteen year old girl picked her when the going got tough, a glorious moment, no one to share it with.
As she wrangles Dolan into nicely petting 'kitty', she quickly braids the other half of her wavy hair, and thinks how things could have gone better. Certainly it would be nice to have a man in the picture to hold her hands, or free them when need be. And it would be great if she had less working mother's guilt, but her job wasn't a sacrifice she could give. So they strike an odd compromise, Dolan keeping her on her toes constantly, learning something new every second, Addison trying to catch up, completely mesmerized.
There's a heap of toys in her office, hiding behind the pristine desk, and Sam doesn't come around as often anymore because it still stings, but as she finally releases Dolan into a pack of her new classmates, the child more outgoing than any offspring Addison could have ever produced, she knows it was all worth it.
She's finally arrived, and there's a peace in her mind, in her soul that Addison just can't put a price on.
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