I'm not sure where this story idea came from, perhaps from some great need to change the way that the Season 2 finale went. The first ship I ever shipped on GA was Addek and I'm pretty much an Addek at heart, although I've been on more of an Addex kick lately and even the occaisional Addison/Burke(which is my super secret OTP, sssh). Anyway I wanted to change the insanity that was the season 2 finale to fit my own needs. :) This is the result.
Thanks to the website MedlinePlus for the medical information. That's an awesome website for all things medical knowledge as I myself don't know a lot of medical things. Hope you enjoy this story!
Derek Shepherd was a man that generally got what he wanted. He'd been the top of his class in medical school, had great looks, he even got the girl. He remembered when he first saw Addison. He'd been late to class and had literally run into her rounding a corner.
After giving the pretty girl you'd just ran over a concussion it was only polite to take her to dinner afterward. He courted her and in the end won her heart as she had won his. They were made for one another.
So when he walked in on her and Mark having sex it had been a wake up call. Derek had fled as far away from his life. He'd fled from his responsibilities, the love of his life.
He can admit now, at least to himself, that he'd abandoned Addison. He hadn't been the perfect husband or lover or even friend that everyone seems to think he was. He'd left Addison long before he'd physically left her. She'd put up with a lot before then. His indifference, his forgetting of important events.
He forgot their anniversary. He came home to discover the remains of a beautiful meal on the table, lit by candlelight. When he got to the bedroom he saw his wife, his beautiful wife asleep on his side of the bed in a lacy number that took his breath away. He'd knelt down beside the bed to look at her. He saw signs of crying; she'd been crying.
Addison had never liked to cry in front of anyone.
Derek had forgotten her birthday and she hadn't said anything. A week later he'd been looking at the calendar that hung on the wall in the kitchen and his heart had stopped at realizing he'd forgotten his own wife's birthday. He'd tried to make it up to her. She had smiled so radiantly at him when he'd surprised her with a trip, just the two of them for four days.
He'd promised then that he'd be better, that he'd work on them more. He'd meant to keep his promise, but he hadn't. Derek had jumped back into the same destructive routine that he'd been on before.
Derek stopped in his preparations in preparing for prom. His Addison was one of the strongest people that he'd ever met. Nothing, short of losing a patient ever got to her. She was never indecisive, always knowing what she'd wanted not afraid of going after it.
Somewhere along the line that had changed.
She wasn't as self-confident, preferred silence to trying to argue anything out anymore, she never really showed herself to her husband anymore. This is something Derek had noticed.
She'd been getting dressed and undressed in the tiny bathroom, never in front of him. They'd had sex a couple times since she'd come to Seattle but the last time had been a couple months ago. Why wouldn't she let him see her body?
More than her sudden self-consciousness was her silence that plagued Derek. Since coming to Seattle she'd always talked to him either trying to argue a point or just talking, babbling really in an effort to fill the uncomfortable silences that often sprung when they were alone together.
In the last few months the silences were getting longer with Addison not saying anything to fill them. She would tell him about her day, ask about his and that generally was the extent of it.
Derek was jarred out of his thoughts by Addison coming into the trailer. She gave him the small smile that she always gave him and stepped around him into the bedroom.
"I thought I was going to have to leave without you," Derek joked
"Last minute patient," was Addison's response
Derek was standing in the bathroom and he heard the sound of rustling clothes. Addison was getting undressed. It was now or never. Stepping out of the bathroom silently he walked the few feet to the bedroom and stopped in his tracks at what was before him.
Addison had always been thin, but this was something else. Addison must have heard the startled gasp from her husband and looked up at him. She had a deer in the headlights look as her hands stilled in removing her skirt as the shirt had already been shed.
"Derek."
This was spoken so softly Derek hadn't almost heard it.
"Addison. Tell me what's wrong."
Addison opened her mouth and then closed it and then said, "What does it matter Derek?"
That wasn't what Derek was expecting for her to say.
"What does it matter," Derek repeated, "You are skin and bones Addison. I want to know what's going on."
Addison looked away from her husband for a moment seeming to decide if she was even going to tell Derek, her husband what was wrong with her. Deciding he really needed to know she said, "Hyperemesis gravidarum."
Derek was silent a moment as he tried to think of where he'd heard that from. Hyperemesis gravidarum…it was…it was…Derek looked up at Addison in shock as she gazed at him impassively.
"You're…pregnant?"
Addison licked her lips with a nod, "Yes."
Derek looked at how thin Addison was.
"This actually better than it was before," she says following his gaze, "The Hyperemesis is better, not so much anymore."
Derek stumbled to the chair at the end of the bed. Addison had a condition that's main symptom was excessive vomiting and he hadn't even noticed. No wonder she hadn't been talking to him. She'd been sick, really sick and he hadn't paid any attention. Addison lowered herself to the edge of the bed watching this news take hold in her husband. He looked appropriately horrified.
"Are you…are you on medication," Derek asks after a moment
"Anti-nausea medication as well as a dry diet."
Derek nodded numbly.
"I've gained five pounds since last week," Addison volunteers, "My doctor says it's getting better. Although I'm still too under weight to be carrying around a baby I'm doing better."
Derek nodded and looked over at his to see her staring at him. She'd just volunteered something about herself. Derek swallowed thickly loosening his tie to have it hanging open.
"Um…I'm an ass," Derek says blinking at his wife who cocked her head to the side
Addison said nothing to this.
"I uh hadn't noticed anything wrong with you," Derek started, "I should have noticed something wrong with you," was finished in a whisper
"I could have told you," Addison says softly not wanting Derek to take all the blame
Derek looked away from his hands and up to Addison. She was taking away some of the blame. She was making his neglect of her not be so bad.
"Don't do that," Derek says softly
Addison raises an eyebrow in question.
"You're my wife Addie," Derek says getting up and kneeling in front of her, "I promised to love and honor you through sickness and health. I haven't been keeping up my end of the bargain. No one is to blame for this but me…me," Derek says as he see Addison start to speak, "I love you and I haven't been showing it and I'm a colossal jackass and you have every right to hate me and walk away form me never letting our child know about how I'm an…"
He stopped his babble when Addison pressed her lips against his softly. When she pulled away he looked up at her in shock.
"You are an ass but I love you and I don't take kindly to anyone calling you names, including you."
Derek swallowed and stared up at the woman before him. She was forgiving him. He sat in awe in the power of her forgiveness and finally he understood what she must feel like thinking he hadn't forgiven her for Mark.
"I forgive you Addie."
His forgiveness could have been about not telling him about the baby or even that she was sick but by the steady stare from her husband Addison understood what his forgiveness was for and she was amazed.
She blinked down at him, "You do?"
"I do. I'm sorry for all the things I've done to you Addison. Know that it's not just because you're having my baby. I've wanted to talk to you for a long time but didn't know how to start."
Addison pulled Derek's hands into her lap, "I didn't know where to start either."
"We're two of a kind aren't we neither knowing how to talk to the other."
Addison smiled at him. Derek took his hands out of Addison's long enough to shrug out of his clothing leaving him in his t-shirt and boxer shorts.
"What are you doing? We should get dressed for prom."
"Some things are more important than prom," Derek says getting up and pulling Addison to her feet, "We are going to stay in tonight and talk; really talk."
Addison smiled at him and just watched as Derek removed her skirt and putting a hand over her flat stomach.
"Derek?"
"Yes love?"
"We're having more than one baby."
The End
Mean aren't I? I might continue. Who knows really. Feedback is the spice of life!