I am an Addison fan, this chapter kind of doesn't show that but I am. I like Meredith but she is entirely too whiny for my tastes a lot of the time. Like Beauty inthe Breakdown has said or maybe I've said itin my head, we know next to nothing about Adi or her relationship with Derek to judge too harshly. I will try towrite Meredith the best I can,kay? If you keep an open mind we shall all get along swimingly.
Now I know next to nothing about the OR suit and how the doors work and stuff but just go with it, please.
1>
I'd often wondered about death
I see it everyday of my life and yet I have never understood it. Where do we go when we die? Is there a Heaven or a Hell for that matter? Are we reborn into a higher plane of existence or do we just cease to exist, fade into nothingness?
This train of thought, I realize, is entirely too philosophical for the situation but when is a better time to contemplate death when you, yourself, are facing death?
I'd often wondered about my own death.
Would I live to a ripe old age and go to sleep never to wake up again? Would I have a stroke at the age of fifty from entirely too much stress? Would I step out of my house, hotel as the case may be, to be hit by a bus?
No. That is not the fate that will befall yours truly Addison Sheppard.
My fate is worse than all of that I think. The bus scenario is actually sounding pretty good right aboutnow and I almost laugh at that but realize how inappropriate that would be in the moment. Then, again, maybe hysterical laugher is warranted when you are looking down the barrel of a gun that is pointed at your head.
Currently I am standing on my knees with my hands above my head trying not to burst into that hysterical laughter I just mentioned. It takes almost everything I have not to do just that.
My life is a three-ringed circus sometimes.
I'd often wondered if your life would flash before your eyes as you awaited your fate. Would you see all of your triumphs, and alternately all of your failures? I had a lot of failures in my life to be sure. Oh sure there were happy times, like graduating from Harvard the top of my class, meeting Derek, our wedding...our...no.
I failed Derek.
I failed myself more.
The affair.
That is such a dirty word. I didn't have an affair. I had a one-night stand. Yes, it was with Derek's best friend, in our own home, but it was that one night. Does Derek know this?
No.
He just packed up his things and left, went across the country to get away from me. I understand his reasoning, his anger, and his disappointment. I really do. I felt all of those things toward myself, but did he ever let me explain why?
No.
What I wouldn't give to be able to tell him everything. It won't change what I did, or the fact that he probably will never forgive me...but it might help him understand a little better. To...maybe not hate me so much.
It looks like a probably won't get that chance. I watch rather impassively as the man with the gun tenses his finger around the trigger. What would it take for him to pull it I wonder? Would I feel the gunshot as it tore into my scull, would I hear the gunshot? I'm sure there is going to be pain. Or is there? Do you die immediately? With a start I realize the gunman is talking to me.
"What," I managed to get out around the lump in my throat, "I didn't catch what you said."
I look up into the eyes of the man that literally holds my fate in his hands. His eyes are cold. That's what comes to my mind when I look in his eyes. There are devoid of anything human. Some would say that about me.
"It's really very clichéd," the man states to me in a tone of voice as if he's speaking to a five year old, "But do you have any last words?"
Last words?
I straighten a little at this question? If I could leave some immortal words behind what would they be? Should I declare my undying love to Derek? Tell him how incredibly sorry I am.
I shift my eyes upward into the surgery box that looks down upon the OR suit. There I see people watching helpless, as they can do nothing for me. The gunman has locked us away in this room. My eyes meet Derek's and I can't tell exactly what he's thinking. I used to be able to know, just by looking in his eyes, what his mood was.
My eyes go back to the man in front of me. Licking my incredibly dry lips I speak.
"I have many regrets in my life, some that I won't get forgiveness for, and rightly so. The one thing I regret most," I close my eyes, "Is that my husband will never know why. He'll never know why I made the single greatest mistake of my life. I just...wish he would have let me tell him before abandoning me."
There, those are some pretty good last words if I do say so myself. Opening my eyes I see the gunman looking down at me. It's a curious expression. He wonders about the meaning behind my words. Like I would tell him. The gunman shrugs his shoulders as he came to the same conclusion.
"Touch your head to the ground with your arms out in front of you."
I hear banging of the glass above as I bend down spreading my arms out in front of me, palms down, with my head on the floor. Even through the glass I can hear people shouting. Who knew they cared so much for me. Certainly not me. I feel the gun pressed to the back of my head and await my fate. I wait perhaps a few minutes without something happening.
"Problems," I can't help but asking
"Sit up."
I do that placing my hands in my laps while still on my knees. The gun is once again in my face.
"I want to know why?"
"What?"
"You cheated on your husband," he remarked stating the obvious, "You wanted him to know why you did. This is your chance to tell him. I don't think he's going to leave you now, even if he does hate you."
I clear my throat not knowing where to start.
"Um...he thinks it was an affair," I manage to stutter, "It wasn't. An affair denotes time. Weeks, months...years."
"It was a one night stand wasn't it," the gunman speaks with surprising insight into my mind
"Yes."
"You still cheated," he points out
"I was drunk...more drunk than I'd ever been. I don't even remember most of the night."
"Anyone in their right mind wouldn't have gone to bed with someone in such a state."
I shrug to this.
"Sounds to me like you were taken advantage of."
I'd often thought that myself.
"Why were you so drunk?"
"I was upset...sad...heartbroken."
"Why?"
I sigh, "Two weeks before I had been ready to tell my husband some wondrous news but he blew me off to fly around the world to do some research project."
"He didn't want to hear your wondrous news?"
I shake my head, "We'd been having some problems and I thought that what I was going to tell him may bring us back together."
"Go on."
I suddenly have to blink back the tears that have begun to pool behind my eyes. I had never told anyone about this. Here I was telling a guy that was holding me hostage with probably half the staff of this hospital watching, including my husband.
"The news that I had to tell him was that I was pregnant," I mange to get out without breaking into tears, "Pregnant with his child."
I can't help but smile at the thought that I was pregnant.
"I was hurt that he wouldn't stay long enough for me to tell him that," I went on, "So I went along with my business knowing I would get another chance to tell him."
"But you didn't?"
"The very next day I got into a car accident. When I woke in the very hospital that I worked in every day I was told 'Addison you are going to be fine, just fine...but'."
"You'd lost the baby."
Those tears broke free and cascaded down my face.
"I'd lost the baby."
"How far along were you?"
"Six weeks. I couldn't reach Derek to tell him the news. I wasn't sure if I could tell him. How do you tell a man that you were pregnant with his first child only to tell him that you'd lost that child? Grief consumed my being after this. Derek would be coming home in a week but I didn't know how to face him. I began drinking to just stop the pain for a little while. On the night that I was more drunk than I'd ever been he showed up, Derek's best friend," I bite my lip to hold back the sob that is about to let loose, "The rest everyone knows," I snort at this as I swipe at my tears, "Or they know what Derek, however uninformed,
told them."
I don't dare look up to see the reaction of those watching. I do see the reaction of the gunman. He has a particularly sympathetic look on his face. I don't want his sympathy. I just want the pain to end. I see the look in his eyes change as if understood what I was thinking. With a shake of the hand holding the gun he points me back down to my previous position.
"Do you still love your husband?"
"Yes," I say without hesitation
"Now he knows," the gunman states magnanimously, "What he does with that information is up to him entirely."
I don't say anything to this and once again feel the gun press to the back of my head. This time I don't have to wait for I hear the gunshot. At least now I knew if you would hear the gunshot before you died.
Now leaving it there would probably make some happy but it would just be evil on my part as I stated above, I like Addison. The next chapter is Derek's POV of the same scene.