Chapter Text
It’s so unlike her to be pacing the front of a drug store, but yet, on a Wednesday night, here she is, on a corner not too far from her brownstone that she needs to drive to but not too close that people would recognize her. For a while, she feels self-conscious, because she’s never really done this before, and she feels as though the whole street is staring at her. Even when she and Derek were together she never had any reason to buy a pregnancy test by herself. She takes out her phone and clicks away at it, busying herself so she blends in. She finds her thumb hovering over the speed-dial, muscle memory developed over the past few months. Mark, she thinks. She needs to hear his voice before she goes into the drug store, needs the surge of confidence from him. And her thumb presses on the speed-dial and she can’t take it back now, so she holds it to her ear and waits for Mark to pick up.
It rings and it rings and she thinks he must be in surgery. She’s ready to hang up when it finally connects through and she can hear him breathe through the phone.
“Mark?”
“Hey Addison,” He says, and she can hear the constant shuffle of the hospital behind him. “Are you home yet?”
She nods her head, even if he can’t see her. She’s unconsciously bouncing on her feet. “Yeah, I’m almost home," She pauses and takes a breath, contemplates if she should instead tell him where she actually is. "I can see the front door just up ahead. What time does your shift end?” She asks, deciding that they should be kept as harboring suspicions.
“5 minutes, I just have some post-op work to do.”
“Okay, see you then. Love you.” She says.
“Love you Red.” The phone clicks off.
She smiles fondly at her nickname and puts her phone away and goes into the drug store hurriedly, making her way to the aisle containing pregnancy tests, grabbing whatever she sees firsts, and moves quickly towards checkout.
She had held her suspicions for a while, and now the stick in her hands confirms them (for the third time). The tiled bathroom floor feels colder and feels like jelly as if she could just sink through to the floor below. Or maybe it’s her arms that feel like jelly? But definitely, the floor is colder now. The torn packages sit on the edge of the sink, and she wishes she could go back to the moment even before her suspicions even formed. She has moments before Mark comes home, her cell is lying open with the last outgoing call to him no more than 15 minutes ago, with two additional test sticks next to it, and she knows better than to sit in the bathroom and wait for him to find her. She needs to clean this mess up, and she needs to clean it now.
She wills herself to focus on any noises, noises that would indicate Mark coming back home. Nothing but silence swallows the house. For a moment she feels relieved - the emptiness of the house for once comforting her. Since Mark moved in, everything that reminded her of Derek was hurriedly collected in a few baskets and thrown into the supply closet. She changed the sheets and washed the couch covers, even in between the demanding shifts of her practice. And when Mark was at work and she was home alone, and the house itself reminded her of Derek, she kept the TV on, put on her favorite record, did whatever she needed to do to stop her thoughts from running crazy from the loneliness. She needed to have noise fill the house when Mark was away.
She breathes out, and places her hands on her stomach, hoping to get some direction now that she’s……pregnant. Fuck. She doesn’t know what to do. She’d never been on the other side, and she had wanted to keep it that way for so long to focus on her career. But with Derek gone, and now with Mark, it seemed like time was running out for her. Being pregnant seemed like a good idea, for once. Though doubts of Mark always had sat somewhere in her mind and admittedly, she never thought of kids going into this relationship.
Mark Sloan could never be a father. That’s what she always thought. Well, he could, with the sheer amount of women he had slept with. But the question was if he would be one. And the Mark Sloan she knew (or she hopes, once knew), would never choose to be one.
Mark was….Mark. He had been known for being the man-whore who everyone slept with at least once. And Derek….Derek was the safe choice. Derek was so safe, too safe in fact. She would be lying if she said she didn’t feel a tiny inkling of something when she first met Mark, he was hot, and he was stubborn, hot-headed, and too confident for his own good, but that just made him more attractive to her. She couldn’t sleep with him, obviously, because he was Derek’s best friend. It was just wrong. She had to shake it all away, laugh alongside their friends as Mark told them all about the continuously growing list of girls he had slept with during their late-night get-togethers after long shifts. And she convinced herself Mark would have never liked her, of course, as he was Derek’s best friend and she was Derek’s girlfriend. She loved Derek. And Derek had suddenly proposed, and she couldn’t say no, and Mark was the best man and she was getting married and their careers were getting jumpstarted and she didn’t have time to think about Mark anymore. And even though Mark came over at least twice a week to hang out with the Shepherds, she didn’t even want to think about him anymore. She was married to Derek. And that was it. Until it wasn't.
Though over the past few months, with Derek gone to Seattle and suddenly living and breathing with Mark, he had become so different and was so different from the person she once saw him as. And even though he wouldn’t admit it to anybody, she knows he’s trying to finally make them work, to grow up and lose the playboy reputation he holds.
But she thinks she shouldn’t tell him, at all, since the baby is in her and what if he wouldn’t want a part of it so she then thinks that she should just get rid of it, without him ever knowing. And for a moment she has some relief, because she can just get rid of it, and no one would ever know. She wills herself to get up and throw away the packaging, hiding it the best she can in the trash, pulling extra pieces of tissue from the toilet roll, and layers it on top to cover it the best she can. She makes a mental note to book an appointment as soon as possible, discreet, away from the city, so no one would recognize her. She wouldn’t book it at their hospital, obviously.
The door closes, slams almost, causing her to jump, and Mark is home.
Mark’s home.
“Addie?” His voice floats from downstairs, a tinge of frustration in his voice. She keeps quiet. His footsteps echo as he makes his way upstairs. “Addie?”
She can hear him first opening the door to the study, then the closet. He’s making his way closer and closer. Her mind races. A secret. Her secret. Mark will never know. She promises herself, and then the baby inside of her. She watches her mouth form the words “I’m in here,” through the mirror, as she turns to ready herself to face Mark. Her hand falls on her stomach again, and she feels overwhelming guilt, so she says I’m sorry to the baby. “Addie?” He calls again.
She pulls the bathroom door open and Mark stands on the other side. He’s leaning on his left arm against the frame of the door, signs that he just finished a long surgery. She notices the tired look on his face first. His eyes drift down to the hand on her stomach. Shit. He knows. Or at least, guesses. Immediately she can spot the worry that emerges through his forehead creases and the frown that crosses his face.
“You okay?” He says, softly, barely above a whisper. He lifts his hand to caress her face, his eyes searching hers for answers.
She takes a breath. “Yeah, I’m fine. I think I just didn’t digest my dinner properly.” She says. She can see his eyes darken slightly, slowing down in his search as if he lets out a huge sigh of relief: He doesn’t want a child with her.
She takes a hold of his hand, walking past him and into their bedroom, pulling him along with her. She plops down on the bed, watching as he changes into something more comfortable. “How was your day?“ She forces a smile.
“A lot better now that I’m home.” He says. “Next to you,” he continues as he sits down next to her, more quiet, under his breath, so sweet and so unlike the Mark she once knew. She can sense his exhaustion, his head falling in her lap. She presses a kiss to his temple, feeling the tension he held, the post-surgery stress getting to him.
She thinks that it must have been a really bad day for him if he comes home like this. “Yeah?” She runs her hands through his hair, gently soothing him as he studies her face. “What happened?“ She asks, knowing that he needed to vent.
So he takes the opportunity and vents about his day, and she can vaguely hear something like “talk to the family” and things like “a possible lawsuit”. But she’s focused on how close he is to her stomach, he’s practically breathing on it, and thinks that if she knew that he wanted a baby she would have told him and they would instead be celebrating. And he would be pressing his hands against her stomach, holding the baby, their baby, and he would kiss her and kiss her and kiss the baby. And she would be so happy.
Mark shifting snaps her back to reality, and she remembers to nod every so often so he doesn’t know she isn’t quite listening. She picks at a few strands of his hair and plays with them, and she knows she loves him, she does, she really does, but she doesn’t know if he’ll love a baby or even the idea of one. So she keeps her mouth shut and tries to pick up a few words here and there.
But the more he talks the more this feels normal, like her normal, like this is how life is supposed to be like, and she can imagine what it would be like if they actually had kids, running around in their brownstone, and them taking their kids to the park on Sundays and Mark and she would fight about first names and middle names and then their shift schedules. Because they would both want the night shift to spend as much time with their baby in the morning as possible, and then they would realise that having a baby and a demanding job meant that they wouldn’t be able to see each other at all, so Addison would first take some time off of work until the baby wasn’t breastfed anymore, and then Mark could take a few months off while Addison went back to work again - and even though they would see each other less than “normal” couples because of their careers, they would both want to make it work and they would still be happy nonetheless. Mark and Addison.
“Addie?” The sound of her nickname pulls her from her thoughts, but it’s so different when Mark says it to when Derek says it, because unlike Derek Mark isn’t annoyed or frustrated or yelling when he talks to her. “Sorry, sorry I-” She starts to say, trying to scramble words together to give an explanation for why she’s trapped in her own bubble.
He’s generous, he is, never angry at her, just patiently waiting for her to say something. But she doesn’t know what to say. And suddenly he’s apologizing. “I’m sorry, you probably had a long day too.”
“No, don’t be.” She cuts him off. “I’m just really tired, and I probably ate something bad, so I don’t feel so well.”
He nods in response. “Wanna go to bed?” She knows that her overthinking makes it seem like she’s tired. Or really, made her even more tired. She pushes the thoughts away and focuses on the man in front of her.
She sighs, “No sex?” she half asks, half teases, a coy smile playing on her lips.
“No.” He pauses, waiting for her reaction. “Unless you want to.” He smirks, the classic Mark Sloan smirk that she used to hate so much but grown to love, and she doesn’t say anything, as if she’s considering his invitation, but she knows she doesn’t want to. Not tonight. She doesn’t want to think about the baby anymore. She leans down to kiss him, feeling the tug on his lips urging her for something more. He tastes sweet, and he feels so soft, and so much like home.