Chapter Text
“You broke her. I don’t know what you told her, but you broke her. Every good thing Meredith is… happened despite you.”
His voice is soft and quiet but Addison hears it despite the distance between them, standing in the doorway to Ellis Grey’s room. The ringing silence in the whole hospital that has fallen over the moment everyone saw the blue body of Meredith Grey still surrounds her wherever she goes and it makes it so easy to recognise Derek’s wrecked voice.
“She may not survive… and that’s on you,” He towers over Ellis, grabbing the side of her bed. “That is on you.”
“Derek.”
Addison is surprised to find her voice so steady. But she has always been this calm in the storm for Derek before everything went down, and vice versa. So, she plays her role, stops him before the situation escalates.
He turns back to see her and lets go off the bed. He follows her down the hallway, away from the room and stops around the corner, leaning against the wall, his breathing ragged with the sobs that are choked inside his throat, “This woman is just-”
“She’s a black hole, there’s no question, but she can’t help herself,” Addison says. “And she certainly can’t fix Meredith.”
“It’s my fault,” Derek shakes his head, tears escaping his eyes.
“Don’t,” Her voice cracks just a bit because she knows when Derek will fall apart completely, she will be right after him. And she cannot afford to do that, not when it’s his girlfriend, when it’s the love of his life and she barely has come to the realisation of what’s been creeping into her heart like a parasite, or to put it better - who.
“See, I knew what was going on and I wasn’t there for her,” He does not stop, he keeps on talking, panicked eyes finding Addison’s.
“You are human-”
“She was pulling away from me and I… I… I just....”
That’s when she understands. That’s when all of this rambling and threatening Ellis Grey and rebel tears finding their way down Derek’s cheeks and scratchy chin make sense. That’s when it hits Addison at full speed.
“You think she went in the water on purpose?”
When Derek nods, panic turning desperation and devastation, “She knows how to swim. She’s a good swimmer.” Then, he begins to sob and shake to the point she wonders how he is still on his feet, knees not giving out. She has to stop him before he gives up because no one can give up on Meredith now. Despite being a realist and a fucking surgeon, she feels that sense if anyone decides it’s too late for the blonde, then she will really slip away and leave them. As long as everyone stands tall and strong, with belief in saving her, Meredith can’t go.
“Derek,” She puts her hands on both sides of his face, shaking him gently to get him to look her in the eyes. “No, you do not get to break down. You do not get to fall apart.” In reality, she knows she is giving the same advice she would love for someone to give to her right now; she speaks not to one person, but to two, hoping she will listen to herself, too. “Not when there’s still a chance, and there’s still a chance, Derek. Okay?”
“Okay.”
He looks at her for a long moment, collecting himself. Both of them are mirrors right now, showing each other the other, but only Addison knows it. She wipes off the tears on his face and when he puts his hands over hers, she knows that they will survive. In the end, they will make it. Meredith, too. She has to.
“Okay.”
She takes her hands away and puts on a sad smile because she has run out of energy, out of a sudden, and that’s all she can do. Derek nods at her, face dry and eyes still terrified but finally with no madness inside of them.
As Addison turns around and heads the other way than he does, that’s when she falls apart. Silent tears run down her face, the information finally processed by her brain.
Meredith went in the water on purpose.
Two hours later, after pacing around the hospitals, checking up on patients and staying away from Meredith’s room, too paralyzed to find out on which side she ended up; if her skin still has the sickly blue colour and won’t get coloured up again or if she is back.
Shivers run down Addison’s spine when she remembers when she walked in and saw Meredith in that state for the first time. For a few seconds she simply stared, lips parted and eyes widened, disbelief blocking her logical thinking. However, she found her voice and started proposing any solutions, peritoneal lavage, continuous bladder lavage with warmed fluids, thoracotomy, anything. Ignoring everyone around working on Meredith, she begged her to stay.
“Come on, Meredith. Don’t do this.”
The door opened for a moment and she turned back to see Derek on the floor, lost and frozen. When their eyes crossed, she knew they are in love with the same, practically lifeless, person. That her eyes reflect the same despair and desolation. But she kept it together, helping Bailey and Chief, because that’s who she was - keep it together until she is alone and her broken pieces can fall on the floor.
But Addison knows the unknown will kill her if she spends any minute more hiding in the on-call rooms or bathroom. She has to know.
So, in this sudden flow of courage, she marches through the Seattle Grace, her heart ringing in her ears. Trying not to hesitate, she opens the door that will tell her how the history went on.
Her knees wobble the moment she sees the slightest of warm tones over Meredith - she is still pale but there are no blue and violet shades on her skin. For a moment, Addison stops and stares at her regularly rising and falling chest and relief floods her whole body.
“She’s breathing on her own,” She says and it takes a lot from her to take her gaze away and look at Bailey for reassurance.
“She is,” Miranda nods.
Addison steps further into the room, letting go of the handle she was holding onto. She comes closer to Meredith and watches her face, so peaceful, as if she hasn’t almost turned around so many lives.
“She’s been down a long time. Do we know the brain function yet?”
“We don’t know.”
All Montgomery wants to do is take Meredith’s small hand in hers and beg her to be okay. To be like before, but she knows she has to leave; Cristina is standing like a statue by the foot of the bed and it’s her person, so it's not Addison's place to be. She has come to find out if Meredith is alive at all, and now when she knows, it’s time to go.
Bailey leaves first and Addison lingers just to take one more glance at Meredith. Only then, when there is only her and Yang, she heads to the door.
Her mission is done.
She should go home after a sixteen-hour shift and go to sleep, but after changing into her normal clothes, each time she comes close to the exit, she turns around and finds herself walking in circles. That’s how she spends the next two hours until Callie finds her in the east wing, mindlessly pacing and stops her.
“Go to sleep,” Torres pulls her to the closest on-call room.
Addison doesn’t even protest. She lays down on the bottom bunk and only then, she realises how her whole organism is strained, her muscles tense and her head throbbing after the day of emotions and fear overcoming the whole building. So, she gives into sleep, her face nuzzling into the mattress and it’s not even a surprise all of her dreams turn into nightmares; she sees drowning people, turning violet and green, she sees everyone dying and she can’t speak because each time she wants to scream, her lungs fill with water.
Three hours later, she awakens with sweat on her back and the nape of her neck, heart pounding. Checking her phone, it’s after midnight, so she sits for a moment until she is fully awake and only then, she decides to make one more final visit, to know what state Meredith truly ended up with.
She stops by the station in the corridor when she sees Meredith has been moved to a different room. Through the open door, she sees Derek sitting on the chair by her bed and Meredith has her eyes slightly squinted, as if she is falling asleep but doesn’t want to and speaks softly something to Derek. She is okay. Broken, bruised, but alive. Sometimes only alive is enough.
Indistinct chatter surrounds her from each side, nurses passing by, but Addison stays in place, staring at the view in front of her.
“So she’s okay?”
When Mark approaches her, it puts her out of the trance she is in and she looks up at him while he mirrors her position.
“Yeah,” Addison nods, feeling one side of her mouth curling. “She is.”
They watch the couple in silence for a moment before he nudges her with his elbow.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Mark asks, voice low and gentle.
“About what?” She raises an eyebrow, looking at him again.
But Mark is not stupid. And he knows her so well that he doesn’t even have to say for her to know what the conversation is supposed to be about; she only wonders what gave her out. Did he see her pacing? Did he see her crying? Did he notice she was falling apart at the mere thought of losing her ex-husband’s girlfriend?
Whatever it was, she is guilty and he is the only person to know it.
“Okay,” He chuckles and raises his hands in a peaceful gesture. “We are not talking about it.”
“There’s nothing to be talked about.”
“Okay, Red,” He says when he puts his arm around her shoulders and pulls her so she can rest her head against him. He moves his hand, warming her up and she closes her eyes at the warmth emanating from his body.
She is quiet when tears spring from her eyes and she hides her face into his shoulder and he lets her wet his scrubs.
“She almost died.”
“I know,” Mark says, holding her close. “I know. But she is all okay. They will be okay. We will be okay, too.”
Addison knows they have a history. God, what kind of history. But in the end, Mark is her friend, no matter how many years have passed and no matter how long it’s been since they met. And that even she, Addison Adrianne Forbes Montgomery, needs someone to rely on and hold her up.
“Let’s get you home,” Mark says and pulls her with him down the hallway.
She wipes her tears off, ignoring people that pass by looking at her and she laughs, “I’m not sleeping with you.”
“I am not sleeping with you,” He tells her, joining her in laughter. “I have standards now.”
That’s what she needs right now, the simple and easy company at the end of this nightmare of a day. So, they leave the hospital together and drive to Archfield and he walks her right to her door, kisses her cheek goodbye and she smiles at him before closing the door.
She hopes that tomorrow will be a better day. And promises herself to find Meredith first thing in the morning and make sure she is okay, especially after what Derek told her. The thought has been planted in her mind and she needs to make sure whatever Meredith did today won’t happen again. She has to help her, and she doesn’t know why she is making herself the saviour once again, trying to save someone again.
But Meredith is worth it.
Even if Addison’s feelings are out of place and she will never tell anyone about them. But it’s her promise, to help Meredith get better. To show her that people care and want her here. Even those people who were supposed to hate her from the beginning.