A/N: Long time no see, eh? So to be fair this is like...get a drink, take a nap first kind of long. And it's the last chapter. And I've been editing and editing and I figure if I don't let this go I will never stop fiddling with it. Last chapters are like that for me, especially this baby. Enjoy, if you can-

~-~-~-~-~-~
More Dead Than Alive (Get Away From The Medicine)
~-~-~-~-~-~

Mark's never been one to practice avoidance. Denial, possibly. But when life throws you a lemon, you hold your fist out to stop it from hitting you in the face, and then laugh at its failure. Sometimes it's painful and the ricochet steals the very breath from your chest. Sometimes it's exhilarating, just sidestepping the tragedy minutes before your demise, cheating fate. Either way, it cannot be dissuaded.

And because he's a fighter, and he believes that in order to move on the past must be handled, he will set up roadblocks. Call all of the hotels in town, even the sketchy ones no human should think of paying money for, and check in with the airlines. And after some heavy charming, be able to see if there is any suspicious activity on her bank account or credit cards. He will determine within a matter of hours, or twenty hours if he's being honest (twelve of those spent at work unknowingly living in the tornado that was building), that Callie is nowhere to be found.

He'll be two steps away from calling the police to fill out a missing persons report when he goes to Derek. He'll be four heart attacks away from letting his mind drift to the scenarios it wants to play and replay. And he'll be, literally, fifteen miles away from her physically, for the entire duration.

But never will he consider that maybe, just maybe, Callie is, for once, exactly where she needs to be. To heal, to repair, to step forward with her head held high instead of her shoulders slouched. Callie needs the freedom to allow things to come in their own time, Mark needs a constant shoulder to lean on, a steady column waiting for once in his life.

The tug-o-war was inevitable, two opposites pulling at their ends until the tension had no choice but to snap, to recoil with a backlash so deep it will never heal completely.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"I'm not letting you do this. I won't, I can't. You will not do this to him Callie!" Addison yells, pacing her living room floor in baggy sweats, her hair tangled in Theadora's grabby little fists. She's long since given up taking away her favorite play toy, even if it must force her to add a few extra aspirin to her daily routine.

"This isn't your choice," Callie mumbles under her tirade, kicking out of her untied running shoes. She left with nothing. Her purse, her worn down shoes, and a dirty pair of socks on her feet. It was impulsive.

But nothing has felt this right since Darren died. She hasn't felt alive until now. The alcohol, the smoking, the running, it was all futile in the face of how fast her heart is racing at this very moment.

"You can stay here tonight," Addison continues. "But first thing tomorrow morning Derek or I, or both of us...we're taking you home."

Callie rolls her eyes, drapes her aching limbs over the Shepherd's new coffee table and exhales. It's going to be a long night. It's going to be a long life. From this moment on out. She finally has a starting point, but it's coming at a hefty cost.

"That...it's not my home," Callie interjects as Addison gets louder, and Dora gets more uncomfortable with her mother's anxious posture. "It's a place we bought on a whim because Derek's stupid family was coming into town and Mark gets all nostalgic and it's...that's not even his family-"

"That's his family," Addison interrupts, but calmly takes a seat next to her, transferring Theadora to the ground.

"I don't know him," Callie jumps in, edging away from the sentimental. "Does he have siblings? Did he have a pet growing up? Where did he go to college? What's his favorite holiday? What's his take on religion, politics- nothing! It's like I've been living with a blank slate." Interesting though, she thinks a split second later, that even if she knows nothing about him technically, she really did feel like she knew him at one point or another. Maybe they were fooling each other, themselves, regardless.

Addison frowns. She has those answers. They were bestowed upon her, year after year. She worked hard to discover tidbits about the mystery man that was Derek's best friend in the "whole universe". But none of those stories are hers to tell. "You can't leave him," she says instead, firm in her position and tone.

"I already did."

"This will destroy him," Addison tells her confidently. Mark takes it more than personal when the few people he lets in his life willing waltz right back out. He has a shitty track record and no ambition, but he likes the ones he catches, and it hurts him no matter how much he thinks it doesn't. When Callie shrugs, Addison can feel her hatred begin to build. She likes the dark haired Ortho surgeon, considers her a close friend, but Mark is...Mark, and there's a loyalty there that can only be sacrificed in place of her devotion to her husband. "What about the baby? Are you going to take another child from him Callie?"

"I didn't take the first one," Callie seethes, backing away.

"No, I didn't mean..." Addison pauses, foot planted securely in her mouth. It's still tender, she forgets. Everyone does. "You waited a long time to tell him about...that, you robbed him of that knowledge and you hoarded it. I understand, I do, but, this is unfair, to Mark and you. And I can't...I can't let you do this. You will regret this."

"You're not my mother," Callie shoots back childishly, wrought with guilt, and pain. Grappling against the harsh words that people like to hurl at her, thinking that it bounces off. She absorbs. It's all there still, stuck in her. A fly wriggling in its trap, she shivers trying to escape their truths.

"This is my house," Addison gestures, finally finding time to fix her wild ponytail, and then snatching Theadora off the carpet when she begins to squawk about one thing or another.

"Do you want me to go somewhere else?" Callie challenges, bravado coursing through her system. She finally got the upper hand in something. "I hear that Canada is really nice this time of year."

Addison huffs when her child demands that something be done about the situation of her empty stomach, and lamely throws on a, "This isn't over" as she leaves the room, headed for the shelter and safety of the pale lavender nursery.

She only knows now what she knew when she opened the door. Her hands are tightly bound behind her back.

Callie may be the victor yet again, but she's tired of playing the pawn.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"What do you want me to do Addison?" Derek asks, tugging on the roots of his frayed hair. "Storm into his house dragging Callie behind me? I can't return something that has no desire to go back."

"Mark needs her," Addison argues. She doesn't know what she wants done exactly, she just knows she doesn't want to be in the middle of it anymore. "We have to do something."

"Maybe Callie needs space," Derek informs her, turning down their bed, flicking off the lamp on his side, as hers stays annoyingly bright.

"You would say that. You would take that stance," Addison decides angrily, tossing a throw pillow across the room instead of adding it to the unstable pile in the corner.

"Hey! I'm not saying I like this anymore than you do, but Callie's your friend too, and you have to respect her choices. Support her."

"Like you'd know anything about supporting-"

"This is not about us," he reminds her plainly, knowing after all these years of Addison freakouts, that this is not aimed at him. He's just collateral damage.

"We have to do something," she repeats, squelching the fire burning inside.

"Sleep on it," Derek advises, kissing her temple and rolling away from the light that floods the room. He hears her sigh, flip open her reading material, sigh again, and eventually prop her glasses upon their perch.

They both know she'll spend the night analyzing, strategizing, and manipulating possible outcomes until rest creeps up on her and she is forced to retire. Derek's just smart enough to realize immediately what role he will be playing in the coming months. Wingman, best man, best friend, brother.

It's his turn to step up, to prove that the past is nothing more than a forgotten memory.

~-~-~-~-~-~

In his haze, Mark remembers coming home to a mostly darkened home. The kitchen light was on, there was a cup in the sink. Her laundry was in the dryer, the timer went off as he hiked the newly carpeted stairs (he was renovating, for their new life, a safer life). When he didn't see her, when she didn't respond when he called her, Mark simply assumed she was out and drown himself in a scalding shower before promptly collapsing onto their bed after another hard shift. The one year anniversary was approaching more rapidly than he would like, and he found himself asleep, wrapped in the memories of his son, his short life.

He awakens naked, disoriented, to the sound of his pager buzzing across the room. His rest was splattered with real events from his past and the haunting images of his imagination's renditions. Some would call it a nightmare, but it was too realistic to be anything but a hallucination. He shakes his head, running a rough palm over his face and falls out of bed, tangled in the sheets. By the time he reaches his pager it's long since done blaring through the barren room, but the message is not. Another 911 has him scrambling for a pair of dirty jeans and gray sweater to ward off the chilly spring air.

He barely has time to see if Callie has come home and already left again, and no time to register the evidence to the contrary.

~-~-~-~-~-~

It's not until lunch, until after an agonizing burn case has toyed with his fragile emotions that his stomach starts to sense something is off. He always thought these premonitions were strictly a Derek thing, he now has a hunch that it has something to do with caring for someone deeply. So he calls, and pages her, and begins ruffling the feathers of his coworkers for information.

"A mocha latte for the lady," Mark says, sliding the hot cup across the counter.

"What do you want Sloan?" Miranda Bailey barks, not bothering to look up before snatching the caffeine off the counter and taking a refreshing gulp.

"Have you seen Callie?" He bites his lip stupidly, a nervous trait that has to belong to someone else. He doesn't know when he turned into this man.

"Not today," Miranda answers before pausing. "Not since...Wednesday I guess it was. How is she?"

But she doesn't receive an answer because Mark's already busy chasing Meredith Grey down the hall, begging for answers.

It can't end like this.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"Derek, is she here man? Please tell me Callie has been here," Mark spills worriedly, having rushed over after pushing his last surgery to tomorrow. In between rounds he was able to establish that she hasn't checked into a hotel, and thanks to Meredith's interns he's been able to ascertain that she also hasn't used her checking or savings accounts for anything. He handled all outgoing flights himself, and the only solution he has is here.

He needs Derek to be his savior, he needs his last words with Callie to not have been the truth, that she was leaving him.

"Come in," Derek says patiently. "Addie! Mark is here," he yells across the house, the redhead joining them in the living room with two beers and his pseudo goddaughter.

"Here," Derek smiles, taking Dora from his wife, "Hold her. She makes things better."

"I don't- have you seen Callie, yes or no?" Mark demands, pacing the floor and accepting Thea even though the last thing he wants is someone else's baby in his arms. Thea, unfortunately, can sense the tension and begins screaming before she can get settled. And to everyone's great surprise, except Mark's, he is able to comfort her faster than Addison can rise from the couch. He patiently soothes her back, her tiny lips falling on his neck as she grabs at his shirt disappointed. It's second nature for him to sway over the cream rug, to turn her around so she doesn't get frustrated by the lack of view his shoulder provides.

"Mark," Derek begins, taking a stern elbow in the ribs from his wife as a precursor to the things she will do to him later if he blows this. "She hasn't been here-"

"Miranda called," Addison cuts him off, "and said you were losing it all over everyone at the hospital. Why don't you stay for dinner?"

"I ca-n't," Mark stutters. "I have to find Callie."

"Maybe she checked into a hotel somewhere," Derek offers lamely, receiving a harsh glare from Addison. He loves how she thinks she knows what she's doing, but he'll fix this. He has to. Because he was the last person to play with Darren, because he was the reason Mark never had his first child.

"I called," Mark gulps. "She's gone."

"Did you call her parents?" Addison asks, replacing her daughter with the cold beer she took out of the refrigerator to calm him. He could use a drink. At least one. She has the benefit of foresight here.

"I don't know their number," Mark pouts, sipping his drink, feeling the pit of his stomach revolt from anticipation, let down, and fraying nerves.

"I'll get it," Addison tells him, "And I'll order dinner. Chinese good?"

"I feel sick," Mark refutes, but falls into a twisted heap on the couch as she struts away.

"Mark," Derek says softly, sure that his wife is out of earshot. "I have to tell you something."

"Was she here?" Mark asks, his hope utterly tangible.

Addison may not be able to do this, but he is. He has to. "Callie is here," he places a hand over Mark's mouth so he can't speak. "She doesn't want you to know, and I know that hurts, but Addie can't say anything and I...don't want you killing yourself trying to find her all night. She's safe."

"Is she upstairs?" Mark mumbles, working his mouth free of Derek's salty palm. He wanted to bite him, clench down on the warm, meaty flesh that was stopping him from seeing Callie but Derek's words halted him. Callie doesn't want him to know she's here.

Callie doesn't want him. And as the betrayal of rejection settles in he leans forward, bile already rising in his throat.

"It's going to be okay," Derek says confidently, patting Mark's back as his friend gulps back the vomit. "She just needs time Mark. Give her some space, and she'll come back. She loves you."

"I really loved her," Mark mourns. He loved her enough to buy a stupid house and rip out the weed ridden backyard and replace it with fresh sod, his shirt soaked in sweat and dirt when he finished last weekend while she hid away in operating rooms. He loved her enough to stand by all of the crazy antics she's pulled because at the end of the day he knows she's hurting, and he wants a chance to tell say he is as well. Mostly though, because sometimes she'll wedge her head into that one spot where his neck meets his shoulder, sighing, her hair tickling his skin, and it makes everything all better.

Sometimes she needs him too. Tonight is not one of those times.

"She'll come back Mark," Derek soothes, hearing Addison come back downstairs, after presumably telling Callie not to move an inch.

"Give her time," Mark repeats, standing abruptly.

"Mark," Addison calls out, the phone pressed to her cheek, "You want rice or noodles?"

"I have to go," Mark says, not realizing he's whispering and hurriedly brushes by Addison on the way out.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"What did you do?" Addison interrogates, Derek still lounging on the couch, finishing off his drink. He can't wait until she'll take some alcohol in again, she's absolutely on edge. And if he weren't so hell bent on being the better man this go around he'd have left with Mark and gone out to throw some darts or something.

"Nothin'," Derek answers, turning the volume up on the television.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing Addie, calm down. Everything is fine." He reaches out for her hand, pulling her down to his level.

"I hate this. Hate," Addison breathes into his shoulder. "I hate keeping secrets, I hate covering up for people- it just-"

"I know," Derek interrupts smoothly, another crisis avoided. He may be the loon by the end of this though, dealing with these women.

"Think he'll be okay?"

"He's Mark," Derek replies. Unfortunately the comforting idea that he's...Mark is exactly the thing that has Addison worried.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"If you're hungry," Derek elaborates, Callie's eyes boring into him as he enters the guest room, a tray of food covering his shaking hands.

"That smells horrible," Callie tells him, struck by how upset her stomach is already.

"I can take it away," Derek suggests, backing toward the door. He and Callie haven't had much conversation in the passing days since Mark's frantic visit. They share an occasional cup of coffee, much to Addison's displeasure, in the morning, and he hands her the parts of the paper he doesn't want in absolute silence. But between Addison and Dora and the madness of the hospital he doesn't have much time for their newest shut-in.

"No," Callie stops him, tossing her reading material off to the side. "Leave it," she encourages, Derek already dropping the pizza on the end of the bed. "I'm going out."

"Okay," Derek nods apprehensively. Addison isn't going to like this, because apparently Addison wants a prisoner of war, and Callie still thinks she has freedom. It's like watching an unprepared student try to break a wild horse. "Hey Callie?"

"Yeah," she grunts, shrugging on her leather coat that Addison confiscated from her locker for her last week.

"Do you...could you maybe watch Dora for us tomorrow? Addison's shift overlaps with mine by a few hours and I was supposed to find someone, but I couldn't and the nursery has had a bunch of sick kids in it all week so Addison will kill me if I leave her there."

"I don't think that's a good idea-"

"We trust you Callie, with her. You'll be fine, and I'd really appreciate it."

"Fine, I guess," Callie withdraws. Maybe Thea will sleep the whole time, she is getting better at that, not that Callie minds the shrill cries in the middle of the night. It's not like she's sleeping.

"Thank you, really. And...we'll keep this," Derek gestures between them, "to ourselves. Addison is already in bed."

Derek's one foot out the door when he hears her question. "Do you think I'm doing the right thing?" she asks again when he turns around.

"I don't know what's right," Derek shrugs. "I can't fathom being in your position, but you're surviving, and that's what counts."

"Thanks," Callie frowns, tears building in her eyes as she stumbles past him and toward the front door.

Surviving really isn't as appealing as it's cracked up to be.

~-~-~-~-~-~

With a bottle of vodka in one hand and her keys in the other Callie watches the house she used to inhabit from the other side of the street under the safety of a cloudy black night. The taxi driver seems annoyed that she won't get out or tell him that it's okay to move but she doesn't care. She's frozen.

Frozen like the stiff petals of the red flowers that line the walkway she used to stroll everyday, frozen like the puddle of water she always stepped in on her way to the car.

Everything screams to just get out, run inside, and hide under Mark's safe arms. To tell him how terrifying this is, how she never meant to hurt him, how it all spiraled out of control so quickly that she couldn't do anything but react. She wants to burst inside the front door and make everything right again. She wants him to brush her hair behind her ear the way he does, and tell her that this time is going to be different.

But she doesn't know how, so she sits, watching the houselights turn off one by one, fingers itching to twist the cap on her drink. She reaches hesitantly for the door handle and then pulls back at least twenty times.

"Don't spill that," the driver warns her sternly.

"Take me back," Callie instructs, inhaling the pungent scent of her escape.

"Whatever you say lady," the driver remarks, shaking his head, car shifting into gear.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"Addison," Callie whispers loudly, rushing into Derek and Addison's darkened room without care for their privacy. Desperate times call for desperate measures. The bedside lamp flicks on instantly, Derek rubbing his eyes, his bare chest revealed by the fallen sheet.

"Callie, what's wrong?"

"Cal?" Addison mumbles, tongue still fuzzy from the two hours of sleep she's managed. Out of the corner of her eye she can see something hanging behind Callie's back, but it's the abandoned look in her eyes that has Addison beckoning her forward with an ushering hand. "Derek, give us a minute."

"Ok," Derek yawns, wisely taking his pillow with him as he goes to seek another place to rest for the night.

"What happened?" Addison asks drowsily, sleep still begging her to come back. The opened bottle falls into her lap, and her jaw slackens in revulsion. "Tell me you didn't."

"I went out," Callie begins. "I needed air. I'm so sick of being cooped up, so I was going to go to the hospital, clean out my stuff, put my official notice in with Patricia but...I got sidetracked and the next thing I know I'm watching Mark through the windows..."

"Did you-"

"I wanted to-"

"You smell like smoke," Addison observes as her friend flops down onto the fresh sheets.

"I had to," Callie argues frantically. "If I didn't...I would've done something else, something I really don't want to do...but I can't help it anymore-"

"Callie, how much did you drink?"

"Joe wouldn't serve me," Callie replies, and for once Addison is pleased with the gossip mill that is Seattle Grace. "So I went to the liquor store...I can't do this! I can't have another child-"

"So you're going to drown it in vodka?" Addison accuses rudely, swinging the bottle in front of her friend's face. She doesn't know how to make this more serious for her, how to make her understand that the pain she feels everyday can be magnified tenfold if she screws this up.

"I didn't," Callie fumbles, toying with the hem of the comforter. She got too much fresh air, too much perspective. "I can't do this. I can't keep...it like this."

"Callie!" Addison yells suddenly, overwhelmed by the scene unfolding in front of her. She's two steps for asking for a real abortion and it's not something Addison can manage for her.

"I need my friend," Callie shouts back. "I don't...need another mother, or a doctor constantly harping on me. I need my friend back." As the truth comes tumbling out, something rare, Callie can feel the pressure build within until her cheeks are laced with water, her nose stuffier with each syllable. "I could have gone anywhere in the world Addison. If I wanted my mother I would have gone home...but I came here, I wanted you okay? And I know I treated you like shit, I treat everyone like shit, just ask Mark but...I need you right now."

"Okay," Addison nods, her own tears beginning to drown her eyes, certain that Derek is going to try and come back to bed any second now and discover this pathetic travesty. In her defense, it's late and she isn't sleeping much lately between work and her child's incessant need to prove that she's still alive since she moved into her own crib down the hall.

"I need you to help me, not yell at me and tell me I'm doing the wrong thing...because most of the time I wake up and want to die but I'm too big of a coward to take any proactive steps toward that goal, so I'm stuck alive. And I'm scared...that this is going to end badly, and I can't have another thing that ends badly in my life. I just can't," Callie cries, pulling on her own hair roughly, trying to find something to hold.

"True," Addison grins through the emotion that's swarming, tucking the bottle away on the nightstand and pulling her friend into a tight embrace. "I'm sorry that I've been such a....I was just trying to protect you from yourself."

"I know," Callie gulps. "And I need that but I need this more. I need someone on my side even if I don't deserve it."

"I'm always on your side Cal," Addison reminds her, even at their worst falling out, she still would have done anything.

"Someone has to be," Callie sniffles, pulling away finally, the human contact much desired after her self-imposed stint in isolation. "Derek asked me to watch Thea tomorrow, and I don't think I can do that yet."

"It's fine," Addison says wiping her own cheeks. "I swear that man does only thirty percent of the things I ask him to."

"Can you...talk to me?" Callie licks her lips, trying to explain. "Tell me something, what's going on with you lately...I need a break. I need to get outside of my own head for a while. I need to stop thinking...about me."

"Yeah," Addison smiles, patting the pillow. They both lay back, rolling over to face each other, tentative peace smothering the room with its steadiness. It will all blow up again, it's how they operate, but for now she's happy to oblige. "Well work is exactly the same, just a different group of know-it-all interns. Karev asked about you the other day, I told him you were probably fine. Mark-" Addison stops when Callie shakes her head. "Derek wants another baby," she tries instead, work a decidedly bad topic. "And I think it's too soon but he says our window is rapidly closing...and we tried so hard for Theadora, and I just got back to work and I don't want to turn around and leave again...so that's what all the yelling has been about. I'm sure you've heard us."

"Once or twice," Callie grins, pulling her tangled black curls out from under her head, snuggling into the pillow. Oh God, she misses this. Addison whining about her life, her men, all of it.

She misses being this person, this friend to someone. She misses being someone she can recognize amongst the wreckage.

"And Derek's family is talking about coming back out sometime this summer, fair warning. Carolyn misses having a baby to moon over. Speaking of, my child hates me, I think-"

"She doesn't," Callie laughs, but the girl definitely has her father wrapped around her little finger.

"But that's basically it, besides all the work drama. Miranda sends her love by the way."

"You told! You snitch!" Callie teases, but it's Bailey, she's as safe as a vault.

"I never said a word," Addison tells her friend. There may have been a few hand gestures and nods, but nothing verbal, that's far too dangerous in a place like Seattle Grace.

"She's good like that," Callie agrees, rolling onto her back. "I miss her," Callie says, thinking aloud, but this is the only way she can think to start over. "This baby will be okay, right?" Callie asks, her hand finding her still flat stomach. She's kept up her running, the Shepherds having a far easier neighborhood layout to master, but if her last pregnancy was any indication, she'll be showing far earlier than she wants to be.

"I will do everything in my power," Addison assures her. Medically, personally, and otherwise. Because they need a break, it's time for the storm clouds to go rain over another couples head for a while. "But Callie, we have to make some changes."

"I know," Callie whispers, fingers pushing her shirt aside until they find her bare stomach. She hasn't allowed herself to think about it too much, for fear of a heart attack, but for a moment the idea of another one of her and Mark's babies growing safely inside her is comforting, not frightening. She hears Addison tell her to stay where she is, offering her one of the extra pillows that was laying at the end of the bed, remarking over how a night on the couch won't kill Derek.

"Addison?" Callie squeaks, unsure if her friend, facing away from her, is asleep yet. To her astonishment, Addison answers in a notably clear voice. "I can watch Thea, I want to try...if that's all right with you."

"If you're sure," Addison smiles, squinting at the alarm clock a few feet away. She has to be up in three hours and Thea should be screaming for her nightly feeding any minute now, but it's all worth it.

The road to recovery is paved with many late nights, many early mornings of self-discovery and rehabilitation, she knows all too well.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"This is stupid," Mark moans into his scotch, "I should go after her."

"Yeah, go rescue her from Satan's lair," Cristina snarls sloppily, spilling her drink on the bar top, Joe whipping out his rag as the last two of his customers drown their sorrows over a certain raven haired doctor who he happens to know is still in town (and really, so does everyone else). It's the worst kept secret.

"I miss her," Mark whispers to himself. Her clothes are still on the ground, her fingernail polish still on the bathroom counter, but it's different. He's been trying to busy himself with the house renovations until she comes home but he's almost done with the backyard, and he ordered the paint to cover the stupid sea turtles in the nursery on Monday. Rapidly running out of things to change, and a reason to live, Mark decided to take Yang up on her offer of drinks when she said that he looked like hell puked up a hairball named Sloan. He could use a good shave, but it's pointless.

His appearance was kept fastidiously after Darren died, it had to be. He was the strong one, the one people were going to lean on, so he had to look the part (even when Callie broke free and sprinted the other direction). But now, now his hair is two inches too long, and his scruff has turned into a full on beard that itches like crazy at night when he rolls over onto her side of the bed trying to scratch out any of the scent that may still be lingering. He could survive losing his son, but he can't live without Callie.

He's pathetic. So he drinks.

"You suck, worse than Meredith," Cristina remarks offhandedly, reaching for her coat on the back of the chair. "Both of you should start a club and be all piny together."

Mark just gulps down the last of his alcohol, letting it sail smoothly down to join the rest, no longer burning his throat and reaches for his keys.

"You're not driving," Joe tells him.

"I'm fine," Mark brushes off. "What about Yang?"

"She walks, and she lives close. I'll call you a cab."

"Thanks Joe," Mark replies, swaying on his barstool, eyeing the empty dart board in the corner. While he waits he picks up a few darts, weighing them in his hand and then angrily throws them forward, the sheer pressure forcing them to ricochet out of the bulls-eye and onto the ground.

It only propels him.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"I want to see her!" Mark demands noisily, trying to barrel past Derek. "Let me in!"

"Mark," Derek warns, "You're going to get us both in trouble."

He saw this coming, he's his best friend, but he didn't foresee not being able to muscle him out of the doorway. As he shoves him back Mark's strong left hook catches him in the jaw. It's uncalled for, but he gets it. They only ever injure each other over women. He takes a few more hits as Mark wedges himself into the hallway, sweeping Derek's feet out from underneath him and sending them both soaring toward Addison's pointy heels.

When they land, Mark forcing the air out of Derek's lungs, the impact of what they're doing settles in. As does the spike of Addison's shoe in the center of Mark's back.

Derek closes his eyes, rolling out from underneath Mark while clutching his ribs, avoiding his wife's furious glare.

"Get out Mark," Addison instructs.

"I want Callie! Callie! Come down here!" Mark shouts loudly, eyes fluttering over the room for her.

"Even if she was here, which she isn't, I wouldn't let her see you like this. Go home, shave that caterpillar off your face, and get some sleep."

"Come on Addie," Mark pleads pathetically, alcohol switching through his gears quickly. "I wanna see her, please...Callie! Calliope! Cal! I need her today, please!"

He continues shouting out her name until he's ass down on the porch, the front door secured behind him. He made it through work grumbling about the interns, and doing sutures in the pit when he had nothing better to keep his mind occupied, but now he's all alone and there's nothing else to do but keep replaying the events of that morning a year ago, the sound of Callie's voice echoing hollowly, and how he was completely and utterly useless. He can't help but feel the weight of his dead son in his arms, and he can't wash it clean.

"Here," Derek mumbles, handing him the ice pack for his head, which took a pretty hard knock as they tumbled to the ground.

Mark bats it out of his grasp, sending it flying into the grass, before burying his face in his hands, attempting to get the images of Darren out of his head. "I want Callie, we should be together today," he blubbers, too drunk to care that he's crying in front of Derek, not drunk enough to feel numb. He didn't even run into her at the grave site earlier, as they had a tendency of doing shortly after Darren was buried.

"Yeah well, after the spectacle you just caused we may as well both leave for the night. Addison's pissed," Derek informs him, placing his own ice under his left eye, already swollen and bruised.

"I don't care, Addison's always angry about something," Mark replies childishly. "Callie!"

"This is unbecoming," Derek snickers, before taking pity on him. "Here," he offers, working a hand into his pocket, pulling out a folded paper and tossing it in Mark's lap. "She's doing better."

Mark unfolds it patiently, sacredly, revealing a sonogram of a fuzzy thing he presumes to be his child. "That's my baby," he grins, wiping the water off his cheeks, tracing over the details.

Technically, it's the first sonogram of Dora that he and Addison got, cropped so he could always carry it in his wallet, but Mark doesn't need to know that. They all look the same anyway, and Addison's name has been chopped off. Sometimes one has to lie for the greater good, and allowing Mark to see Callie like this will only negate all of the progress they've both made.

"She's going to come back?" Mark asks his friend, sealing his last string of hope and stuffing it in his jeans. He has a new picture to join the old one. Something else to cling to.

It'll hold him over for a while longer.

"Yeah," Derek sighs. "She'll come back."

But with each passing day, every week that skips by, Derek's less certain. Callie's coming alive again, in full bloom, giggling with Dora, and shopping with Addison for new shoes and things they don't need. She looks happier than she has since Darren died, and Derek's starting to believe that it may be due, in part, to her recent escape from their relationship. Sometimes it's easier to get on with life when you don't have a living, breathing reminder of how it used to be. Then again, she could just need the time to re-center and focus.

It's hard to say, so he won't.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"You said you were going to stop," Addison reminds Callie, stepping out into the cool night air, waving a hand in front of her face to move the smoke.

"I'm trying," Callie tells her, and it's the truth, but sometimes she needs to chase away the dragons in her mind, in her heart, and since she can't get plastered drunk without getting her ass kicked to the curb, she smokes. It's getting rarer, but she's not healed by any stretch of the imagination so she deems it acceptable. Besides hearing Mark sobbing outside of her window has her stomach wound into a knot.

"Gimme," Addison sighs, taking the stick between her fingers and to Callie's great surprise takes a drag before stomping it out. "Oh," Addison huffs, smoke trailing out of her mouth, "That was rough."

"It's a rough day," Callie notes, the one year anniversary. But it's better here. There are baby socks but they are pink instead of blue, and there are tiny outfits but they have flowers instead of trucks. Everything is different, she's doused in denial. On vacation, and she finds it doesn't hurt nearly as bad in her safe little bubble, surrounded by a few select people.

There's a palpable level of guilt, however, that comes with being emotionless on the one day you should be curled up in a corner trying to kill yourself.

"It's getting better," Addison tells her, winding an arm around her waist, pulling her close. "We could go wrack up some noise on Derek's card, he deserves it."

"No," Callie shakes her head. "I just want to be alone for a while tonight."

She didn't have the opportunity to be herself all day, because she's sort of turned into their nanny. They've long since stopped asking if it was okay to unload Thea on her because she's long since stopped minding. Thea keeps her busy, keeps her on her toes. There's no time to wind up into a ball and sob her lungs out when a baby needs to be fed or rocked or put to sleep. There's no time for pity when a load of laundry needs to be folded, when she needs to run out for diapers.

And she never in a million years thought it would come to this, that running other people's errands (groceries and dry cleaning) would somehow quell the raging storm within her, but it has. She has purpose, and pathetically, it works. And it's almost cathartic, holding someone else's baby, knowing that she won't kill this one.

Tonight, though, tonight she wants to snuggle up under her pillow and try, for her son. Cry until she can't breathe, or until she pukes, which has increased dramatically in the last month, a sign that her child is healthy within. She owes him this, a day set aside for specifically remembering the way he would gurgle at his curtains, or how he would always wind a fist through her knotted hair.

"Do you want me to order you dinner or anything?"

"No," Callie replies, dropping her head onto her friend's shoulder, gasping at the clear June night above them. The stars wiggle against their velvet backdrop, and she can't remember the last time she saw a constellation in whole. "I'll come down and grab something if I get hungry."

Everything is completely different, and yet it's exactly the same.

"You really want to be alone?" Addison asks again, because sometimes she says she does and Derek will worm his way into her self-imposed depression and everything turns out all right. "We could watch a movie, order pizza, get fat together?"

Callie laughs to herself, she's yet to get overly fat, but there's definitely some noticeable differences. "I'll be fine, I promise."

"Okay, but if you need me-"

"I'll follow the trail of tears-"

"She really does hate me, that's not funny."

"Better have a boy next time then," Callie warns Addison, Derek even haven pulled her into one of their infamous "discussions" that landed him on the couch for a week. They spent the following morning commiserating over Addison's failed expeditions as a mother, and sipping a strong cup of coffee, to make him feel better.

"Night Cal."

~-~-~-~-~-~

True to her word, the emotion overtakes her thirty minutes later, but instead of trying to slip on her running shoes or sneak a bottle of Derek's scotch into her room, Callie draws a warm bubble bath and accepts the hurt, the anger she's repressed over the universe stealing her child. Her baby who had never done anything to anyone, he was owed the chance to live, and that's the thing that still gets to her the most.

That something so wonderful could be gone, she doesn't know why it had to exist at all. And that burn never seems to fade.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"If she doesn't want to get out of bed, she doesn't want to get out of bed, leave her alone Addison. Stop meddling in other people's problems," Derek says, still enraged about half the night she kept him outside. He thought they were past this childishness, her monitoring Callie, but apparently he's wrong.

"I'm not meddling-"

"You are," Derek rolls his eyes, rifling through the closet for a shirt, behind schedule. "You're incessant need to fix everything and everyone is-"

"Stop!" Addison yells. "You're angry, I got it."

"You left me out in the rain like a newspaper-"

"You told Mark she was here!"

"Guys?" Callie squeaks, poking her head through the cracked door.

"I could have gotten sick, I could be getting sick-"

"Oh come on Derek-"

"Addison?" Callie tries again, the couple still facing away from her, dealing with their separate wardrobe issues. Derek fumbling with his belt, Addison trying to climb into her shoes.

"And then I'll get Dora sick and you'll be angry because you can never calm her down-"

"Hey!" Callie yells, resorting to her last option, finally garnering their attention.

"Look," Derek snarls, "She's out of bed. You get what you want, like always."

"I'm...cramping," Callie explains awkwardly, even if Derek is a renown doctor, searching for Addison's help. "And spotting, a little. It might be nothing-"

And the sick part of her, the residual disturbed part wanted never to say anything all. Let whatever was going to happen, happen. Let the world take another one of her children if that's what it wanted, what the hell does she care?

Except she kind of is attached to this new beginning (not the child itself), and despite her best efforts, she's terrified that it will all be for naught.

"Are you pain?" Addison asks, looking her over, analyzing every strand of hair that's out of place.

"No...not really," Callie replies trying to remember what it was like the first time. But she's spent so long attempting to forget that situation that the comparison is easily lost.

"We should go check it out Cal," Addison advises, tucking an earring through its hole.

"I can't...go there-"

"Callie," Addison says seriously, "As your doctor this isn't a negotiation. As your friend I understand and we will take every available precaution to ensure that you don't run into him. Derek-"

"Nope-"

"Please?" Callie asks, her eyes already watering in anticipation of this summer's newest disappointment. June is such a bitch of a month.

"Fine, I'll...distract Mark if he's out of surgery," Derek folds easily. Fighting takes too much energy anyway, and it'll be a welcome hide out from people asking him if Addison finally got violent enough to punch him, his face varying shades of purple, random levels of puffiness.

~-~-~-~-~-~

Callie chews her lip impatiently, simultaneously ripping her cuticles to shreds. She didn't think she cared this much, she honestly didn't think she'd mind if it went one way or the other, but lying here waiting is killing her. Which, she reasons, is completely different from actually caring about the outcome, but regardless Addison has been gone for what feels like an eternity, her IV is almost dry, and with each passing second she gets more and more concerned that Mark is going to waltz in.

Maybe the redhead is out there pacing the halls trying to figure out a way to tell Callie that this isn't going to work out, maybe she knows nothing yet and is guarding the door, or maybe she got roped into another patient while she was on the floor.

The sheer magnitude of the situation reduces her to tears. She left her job, her man, her home to try and figure this all out, to try and get better. And now, it's all going to come crumbling down.

All of her hard work, throwing the addictions out, it's going to be for nothing. Simply breathing hasn't hurt this much in such a long time but the pain settles over her like a warm blanket, an old friend welcoming, beckoning her to pull up a chair and stay a while.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"Addison is going to kill me," Derek mourns, sneaking around the corner, motioning to Mark to follow when the coast is clear. "If anyone asks, you were looking for your patient and...found Callie."

"No one will ask," Mark laments. No one talks to him anymore, they avoid him. He's nothing these days.

"If they do," Derek secures.

"You had nothing to do with it," Mark mumbles in compliance, his head still pounding from the previous night's adventures in failure. "About your face-"

"You're going to have to get through the nurses-" Derek interrupts, he doesn't want Mark's apologies. Plus he kind of feels like a bad ass walking around with his injuries. The attention is flattering.

"No one bugs me anymore," Mark tells him, he isn't kidding.

He's a ghost wandering the halls, a lost soul set out to sea, never to return.

Mark stops just short of the door Derek told him belongs to Callie. She didn't call him. She hasn't informed him that anything may be wrong. Maybe she wants him to know but doesn't know how to pick up the phone, or maybe she doesn't care. Maybe she doesn't want to worry him.

He's sick of justifying it though, he's tired of waiting on pins and needles for her to grow up.

He gulps back the lump forming in his throat, gives himself a mental pat on the back, and promptly turns on his heel. He can't do this anymore, chasing his tail. Once upon a time he used to know better.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"Ever hear of aiding and abetting?" Addison asks, resting her elbows on the counter next to her husband.

"He didn't go in," Derek tells her sullenly. "I'm so over this-"

"Try doing it while growing your spawn," Addison retorts, raising her eyebrows when his face jumps. "You will tell no one, understand? No. One." The unfortunate set of circumstances Callie has fallen into, and her increasing age, have Addison on a frightening roller coaster of all the things that may go wrong before she makes it safely through the next few months. At first, last week when she finally gave into annoying self, she thought it'd be fun to have kids together. To be able to go through this again with a friend, now she just feels like vomiting all over Derek's shoes.

"How's Callie?" Derek asks gleefully, toes begging to dance. He wasn't sure he'd win out on this, but he has, and it almost negates the hours he spent in a torrential downpour last night. Which, if he knows his wife, was exactly her intent in telling.

"I don't know," Addison breathes, burying her hands in her lightly curled hair. "I can't be responsible for this happening again."

"Addison-"

"I'm going to go annoy the lab guy, see if he'll hurry up," Addison dismisses, walking away before Derek can get in another word.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"She doesn't know anything yet," Derek tells Mark, meeting him at the O.R. board.

"Don't care," Mark replies.

"You care," Derek scoffs, rubbing the heel of his running shoe on the ground.

"I know rejection when I see it," Mark says, his hands on his hips, looking for something he can scrub in on to get his mind off of this. Maybe Miranda Bailey will take pity on him.

"Mark, don't do this. Don't be...that guy who runs-"

"Says the pro," Mark battles. He'll let it get ugly, he'll take out his months worth of frustration on Derek, if that's what he wants, if he keeps pushing this.

Instead, smartly, Derek heads towards the stairs having learned something over the last decade. Mark won't be reasoned with when he's like this.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"Addison," Callie gripes, her friend softly closing the door. "I didn't mean for this to happen, I swear." Of all the times she thought that this shouldn't be, last night wasn't one of them. "You have to believe me."

Addison pulls up the stool, letting the wheels roll slowly, as she inhales deeply. "I believe you," Addison smiles, placing her hand on Callie's arm calmly. Even if she didn't, she wouldn't say so.

"Addie?"

"Everything on the tests I've gotten back so far looks normal," Addison sighs. She isn't relieved. It's easier when there's a culprit she can pinpoint. "Your cervix is still closed, placenta looks good. I'm not sure yet."

"I'm fine?"

"You're not fine," Addison protests. "No more coffee, no more midnight cigarettes, no more extraneous exercising, you have to promise me. I don't want to keep testing fate."

"Okay," Callie agrees. She can do it, maybe.

"You will take it easy-"

"Scout's honor," Callie mumbles to herself.

"I want to get a good look at what's going on in there again, so you're just going to have to deal with me being overly thorough," Addison explains, sliding over to the ultrasound machine. Maybe she missed something the first time, her hands were begging to shake under the pressure. If she loses this child, it will be hell.

"It's fine," Callie admits, eyes fixating on the interesting pattern of the ceiling tiles above. No one in the room is expecting her to look, and for once she's glad that Addison took her back because there's no guilt in here, no blame.

"And..." Addison clears her throat, buying time because Callie will flip her lid. "I'm admitting you."

~-~-~-~-~-~

"You can't just pretend she isn't here," Alex remarks the following day, scratching into another one of Addison's charts as Mark reclines in the chair behind the nurse's station. "Don't be a dick dude."

"Don't call me dude," Mark counters, taking his feet off of the table, preparing to walk away.

"You know she's scared shitless, and it's not like you aren't wandering the halls aimlessly, trying to think of reasons not to go in. So she didn't call, so what? Be a man."

"It's not any of your business," Mark informs him, stalling in his steps.

"Your moping is contagious, and it's annoying, so it is my business," Alex replies lamely, looking at the chart again.

"You're Addison's little minion again," Mark notes, the redhead finally back in full swing.

"Dude-"

"Shut up Karev before I put your annoying mouth through a wall," Mark scowls, marching away, enough time ticked off the clock above his head so that he can go scrub in and not be insanely early for his first surgery.

It's not avoiding if he pretends she doesn't exist.

~-~-~-~-~-~

Two days later and Mark can't escape her. Every murmur down the hall is Callie this, Callie that. And he wants to string Addison up by her fancy little shoes in outrage and demand that she be treated somewhere else. It's wearing on his sanity, his ability to function and perform daily necessary tasks. This morning he rounded on the wrong patients, giving the stupid little interns trailing him something to gossip about and then he spilled coffee all over his favorite shirt, burning his chest in the process.

"You are a selfish-" Mark shouts, bursting into her room, but stopping when he finds her faced toward the wall, stirring from his break in.

"Mark?" Callie squints, discerning whether or not his figure is of dream like clouds or the real deal.

"- bitch," Mark finishes with a flourish. It was already built up. He couldn't hold back.

"Mark-" She struggles to get upright, something Addison would kill her for, but if she can't be eye level with the man degrading her then she at least needs to be sitting, instead of lying down and taking it.

"Why didn't you tell me? Why haven't you called? Why aren't you coming home at night!"

"Mark-"

"Why don't you want to see me? What did I do Callie?" He hasn't felt this vulnerable since he was eight years old and his father was giving him a very handy lesson about the things he gave a shit about- not his son, namely. And he wants to cry like a sissy, and dig his palms into his burning eyes, but pride stops him just short.

"Nothing," Callie whispers, feeling the kick to the stomach loud and clear. She broke him, but she can't put him back together when she can't even pull it out of herself.

"Then-" Mark gulps, then it's him. She doesn't want him. There's no saving him from anything. They aren't taking a fucking breather here. No recourse, he warns. "We're done."

"I'm trying to be better," Callie replies. Better than what she doesn't know. She just knows that she can't spend days on end curled into the couch cushions when this baby comes, she can't wallow anymore on all of the what ifs and could'ves of the last year.

"We're done," Mark repeats, slower, really understanding. "My baby-"

"Is fine, for now. She's fine," Callie illuminates, stuck on neurotic Addison imposed bed rest. It's all she can give him, even if it hasn't fully registered within yet.

"She?" Mark scrunches his nose. He never considered it being a girl.

"I really wanted this to work out." Callie shakes. She did want a family, a big one. And a tree fort, and Mark chasing the kids with the water hose out back. But that's not the reality of their situation.

"I want...to be there. I have to be there," Mark states plainly. His heart is already out of this argument. He spent so long fighting for her, for something she never wanted apparently. The blow is deafening, debilitating.

"October."

"Ok," Mark nods, reminding himself to write that down somewhere so he doesn't forget.

"We can do this Mark," Callie says encouragingly.

"You can have the house," Mark replies, mind wandering off, body confused by the sudden clenching of his chest. "I'll be out by tomorrow." At the very least his kid, his daughter should have the things he made for her. He finished the nursery late last night in yet another drunken haze. Crisp yellow and refreshing spring green. In hindsight, it's probably more fitting for a girl anyway. Callie will inevitably hate it.

"You don't have to do that."

"I really loved you," Mark says reflectively, chiding himself, the tears he doesn't want beginning to prick at his eyes. "I know I did stupid shit, but...you...it was real."

"Mark-"

"You don't have to keep sending out Addison as your attack dog. I'll leave you alone," he promises. His parting gift.

The door clicks shut softly before he can hear her reply. He never imagined that it'd end with him being so resigned. But then, he never banked on it ending at all.

~-~-~-~-~-~

... and in the end someone will walk away ...

~-~-~-~-~-~

A/N: You all have been so wonderful and forgiving of the angst that I'm working on the epilogue (that wasn't supposed to exist). Thank you for the kind words and support on this monster, I truly appreciated all of it. :)