Hey, the Maddison one-shot I've been working on for a month is finally ready. I kept changing it and changing it and now I think I'm finally happy with it. Anyway, this takes place after Derek left New York. To be more specific, it's right after Addison discovers Mark with Charlene. I know they don't specify how she found out so in this story she walks in on it. Hope you enjoy :)
Mark stood in the NICU strangely eyeing a woman well into her fifties who stood with a white coat beside an incubator.
She had called him for a consult about a baby she'd just delivered with a cleft palate. The only problem was that he couldn't concentrate. Why? Because the woman speaking to him was not Addison. He excused himself secretly when another baby in the NICU went into code blue. He ran to the chief's office and barged in without knocking. "Why is there some old ugly broad in the NICU instead of my girlfriend?" he demanded.
"She's not your girlfriend, Mark. She's married to your best friend. She let you move in with her because she wanted to convince herself that she didn't throw her marriage away for a one night stand. She didn't do it because it was something she'd been dreaming of."
"I love her and she loves me. She's pregnant with my child. She and I are together because we love one another, because she's the only thing that matter to me."
"If there were true then you wouldn't feel the need to screw other people in this hospital with her around." the chief of staff, Jim- a very close friend of his, said in anger.
"She thinks I screwed other people?" Mark yelled with an edge to his voice. "I didn't. The whore nurse from peds, Charlene, she told me she wants me to see something because she needed my opinion. And for once in my life I didn't take that in the perverted context. I stood there while she was taking off her shirt and I thought it was about a boob job or something and the next thing I know she's trying to kiss me and the door opened and she stopped. I never saw who it was but that person told Addison a very wrong story!"
"That person was Addison." Jonathon replied regretfully. "And she interpreted the situation to be exactly what I'm sure it looked like and she came in here and told me she needs an indefinite leave of absence to go fix things with her husband."
"And you let her go?" Mark yelled. "You're suppose to be my friend!"
"Well Derek is also a very close friend of mine. So you can't expect me to choose you in this. I'm not taking sides. She needed time off, I gave it to her. What happens from here is up..."
Mark cut him off before he could finish. "When is her flight?" he asked quickly and impatiently.
Jim shrugged. "I don't know."
"Yes you do!" he yelled. "She's your friend too, you're pretty close to her. I'm sure she told you. I'm sure of it."
"I can't tell you, Mark. It's private information." he replied cautiously at a very angry Mark Sloan.
"She's the love of my life. She is everything to me, you know how I feel about her. I can't lose her. Not like this. She can't think fucking some slut means more to me than she does. I need to clear that up at the very least." Mark Sloan was not a man who begged. But at that second he was begging.
"She went home to pack and book a ticket for today. She wanted to be gone by the time your shift ends. She should still be there if you move your ass right now. I'm not sure when her flight leave."
Mark took a breath of relief and nodded, "Thanks." he replied quickly and ran out with another word. He drove as fast as possible to get to the Brownstone before she left. He walked in just in time to see her walking down the stairs with a suitcase in hand.
"Addison." he breath out in relief, partially because he was barely able to breathe during his entire drive home. He kept thinking he would walk into an empty house to find some cheesy note. "You have to listen to me. It's not what you think."
"Really?" she asked sarcastically. "You don't find something wrong with the father of your unborn child kissing a half naked nurse?"
"That's not what happened!" he exclaimed. "I didn't think that's what she wanted when she told me she needs to see me in private. I thought she wanted a boob job or lift or something along those lines. I didn't expect he to take her shirt off and jump me! She knows I'm with you, I don't know why she would do that."
"Do I look like I was born yesterday? You are not naive enough to believe that a woman who takes off her shirt for you is doing it because she wants your professional opinion."
"I am naive enough! Maybe I wasn't before but after being with you I never think of other women in a sexual way. I know that's hard to believe but it's true."
Addison looked up from the one spot she had been staring at on the floor. She glanced into his eyes and murmured, "I wish I could believe you." before walking right out the door without even saying good-bye.
Mark fought the temptation to go after her. He didn't want to hurt her anymore than he already had. He had ruined her marriage, caused a pregnancy from their affair and now he had broken her heart with his stupidity.
He spent thirty minutes hoping she would come back and when she didn't he got back in his car and went back to work to finish his shift. When he saw Charlene walking past him in the hall he found himself unable to hold back his anger. He grabbed her arm and pulled her into what he hoped was an empty room.
"I knew you'd come back and beg for it." Charlene smirked. "They all come back begging."
"My father walked out when I was born, my mom walked away when I was 11. I had no money when I went to college. And Columbia is very expensive. By the time I graduated medical school, I had half a million bucks in student loans. It took a lot of work to get to the point I'm at."
"Whoa, Mark. I'm offering you sex. If you wanted a woman who would be sympathetic and caring you should have stuck to Montgomery. I'm not into men with feelings and emotions."
"I'm not opening up to you." he assured bitterly. He heard his cell phone ringing up didn't bother to answer it just because he was too into the heat of the moment. "I'm telling you because it's the only thing keeping me from killing you. I went though too much to ruin my life by going to jail. You are not worth paying that price."
Her jaw dropped, obviously because no one had ever had the never to be so blunt with her. "Fuck you, Sloan. If you don't wanna screw around with me there are plenty of guys out there who are begging for it." she said before storming away.
"That was quite a scene, Dr. Sloan."
Mark's head snapped back to see a middle aged woman with her arms crossed standing by a bed with a child in it, a bed which had formerly been covered by the curtain partition. Suddenly he realized that Charlene was a paediatric nurse, and the pediatric department at Mount Sinai was one of the busiest. He gave Addison credit for that, she was in charge of two branches of the peds wing: the neonatal department and pediatric surgery. She was miraculous when it came to the treatment of children. He realized that there was never an empty room on that floor and that the patient's mother had witnessed the whole thing. "I am so sorry." were the only words he could say.
"You were involved with Dr. Montgomery?" she asked curiously. "She's a great doctor. I took my son to see at least ten different pediatricians and three other pediatric surgeons and they all told me that there was nothing they could do for him. He had neuroblastoma. Then I heard about her and decided to take on the case and now he's getting stronger every day."
Mark smiled. "She's been like that for as long as I've known her. Back when we were interns she'd fight with attendings because she thought the patients still had a chance. Our resident told her she would never make it as a surgeon because she got too attached to now she's in charge of the best pediatric unit in this half of the country." the smiled on his face died when he realized he was talking to a patient's mother, her patient's mother no less. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be telling you this. I shouldn't be in here in the first place.
"Do you love her?" the woman asked curiously.
"I...uh.." he paused. He knew he did. There was no doubt about it. But he wasn't sure that she'd be okay with him telling her patients.
The woman nodded in understanding. "Of course you do, you wouldn't have that smile on your face every time you hear her name if you didn't love her." she replied. "By the way, your phone was ringing earlier. You may wanna check your messages when you have a minute."
Mark nodded and quietly slipped away. He went down to the cafeteria hoping to find an empty table outside. He wanted to be away from everybody for a few minutes. He needed time to himself. He bought himself coffee, a vanilla latte to be more specific. He hated lattes, he hated vanilla lattes even more than he hated regular lattes. But Addison loved them and they reminded him of her so that's the drink he got.
He navigated through the outdoor seating area until he found a vacant table and then he took a seat. Mark usually never checked his voice mail. His theory was if it was important enough the person would call back. But this specific message was left by her and he needed to hear the sound of her voice. So he held down the 1 on his Blackberry until the got to his voicemail and heard her through the speaker.
"Mark, hey..I uh...I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to walk out on you like that. Like Derek walked out on me. I, of all people, should have realized that it's not the best way to end a relationship. I love you, Mark, I do but I don't see how we ever thought we'd be a serious couple." then there was a pause, and it was long enough for him to believe that she had nothing else to say. Just as he was about to hang up he heard her again, "I need to get off this plane. I love you, I'm in love with you. And we may have had a horrible start but I can't imagine myself with anyone else."
Mark's expressionless face quickly worked up grin but that quickly died down when he heard who he assumed was a flight attendant, "We've been cleared for take off, ma'am you need to hang up your phone."
"I need to get off this plane." He heard Addison counter.
"Yes!" he screamed into the speaker. "Get off the plane, Addison. Get the fuck off that plane!"
"I can't let you off right now, we're about to move."
"Yeah, but we haven't moved yet so I don't see the problem." Addison yelled. "I can't walk away from the only man who has ever really loved me. You need to understand that. I need him. I need to get off this plane to tell him that."
"You need to hang up that phone." Mark heard the woman order and the next thing he knew the line had gone dead and his heart rate had double.
"No. You can't end there!" he screamed at his phone as if it was it's fault. He noticed the blinking light telling the battery was dying. "I need to know if she got off the plane. You can't die until I talk to her." he told his phone in a very firm tone.
Mark went through his recent calls and called the very first person on that list. By the third ring he began to get frustrated. "Come on, Addison, answer your phone. My battery is about to die and I need to know if you got off the plane!" he yelled. He heard a phone ringing in back of him, normally that wouldn't bother him but it was the same ring tone that she had and hearing it was making him anxious.
"I got off the plane." she whispered softly while standing a few feet away from him.
He got up from his chair, and stared at her like she was a dream. "You did." he mumbled with a smile growing on his face.
"I'm married to your best friend, Mark, and I'm madly in love with you. We've got a child coming in about 7 months, a child that we made while having adulteress sex. I am stubborn and judgmental and somewhat materialistic. And you are are arrogant and you are addicted to sex, you barely have friends with Derek gone."
"What is you point?" Mark asked, staring blankly at her waiting to hear the silver lining of her speech.
"My point is that we are both screwed up, possibly too screwed up for other people. You understand me and I understand you. And that's the basic foundation for any good relation, that's something Derek and I never had."
Mark nodded with a smile. "You're right." he whispered, bringing himself so closer to her. "You understand me, you know me better than I know myself and it would be a waste to throw away something like that. And I promise you, I will never look at another woman like I look at you. I love you. I won't do anything stupid."
Addison looked at him with a smile but she didn't say anything. She just stood there looking up with his eyes.
"This is the part where you tell me you love me too." Mark reminded her with a chuckle, leaning in to place a soft kiss on her lips to snap her out of her trance.
"Mark, I stopped a plane getting ready to take off because I needed to get off of it to come see you. I would think you know how I feel about you without me having to tell you."
Mark grinned wider than he ever had before because she made a great point. "Our kid is gonna be so screwed up. The first words out of his or her mouth are going to be something like 'fuck it' and the poor thing is gonna walk in on us having sex so many times that he or she would wish she was blind. But we're gonna have the most beautiful kid ever born and we are going love him or her no matter what."
"Although I'm sure our kids aren't going to be too thrilled or proud when we tell it that our relationship started as an affair."
"They'll understand when we tell them how you got off the plane for me."
Thoughts?
