*2 months later*

"When does your shift end?" Derek asked into the phone as soon as Addison answered. "I mean, I know it ended an hour ago but you were clearly just stepping out of the OR so when will you be home?"

She exhaled a breath and pulled her scrub cap off of head her head. "I don't know, Derek. I have to go talk to this woman's husband and tell him that her ovarian cancer had already spread to her liver and that there is nothing I can do to help her at this point. I have an ambulance bringing in a one year old MVA victim. I'm pretty swamped up right now. I'll call you when I'm done with the baby."

Derek rolled his eyes. "Right…" he answered before handing up.

Three hours later Derek jumped up from where he fell asleep on the couch when he heard the front door slam shut. He pulled himself up, rubbed his eyes and moved toward the foyer to see what was going on. "You were supposed to call me after you finished with my MVA kid." He reminded her, taking notice of the fact that she was still in her dark blue scrubs. She usually always changed back into her designer wear. What he didn't know was that she was in such a rush to get home that she didn't even bother considering to change.

"I didn't want to waste time. I just… I got out of surgery, got in my car and came home." She answered. "Where is Emma?"

"She is asleep. It's 2 in the morning." He stated very matter-of-factly.

"I need her." Addison mumbled and moved toward stairs. He raised his brow skeptically and followed her upstairs toward the nursery she had only been in a hand full of times. She moved toward the crib and peered in to see the child peacefully sleeping. "Will she scream all night if I wake her up or does she go back to sleep easily?"

"She goes back to sleep pretty easily." He answered, his brow still inclined as he wondered what she was doing. Their daughter was almost a year old and though Addison's postpartum depression had eased up, she was still wary about being alone with the baby. She never held Emma for too long, she couldn't stay alone with Emma for more than an hour which gave Derek just enough time for a shower once in a while. When it was three of them, she was much less paranoid. She didn't feel suffocated by her daughter's presence as long as she was in her father's arms.

Addison carefully lifted 11 month old Emma from her crib. Emma opened her eyes, about to cry as soon as she was lifted off the bed. Just as she was about to scream she felt herself being cuddled against her mother's chest and automatically forgot the urge to cry. She put her head down on her mother's shoulder and yawned. Addison felt tears welling up in her eyes as she felt her daughter's hot breath against her neck.

"What is going on with you, Addison?" Derek asked, surprised by the fact that she was being warm and affectionate toward Emma. Though she was significantly less cold than she had been at the beginning, she had never warm to the extent of cuddling.

"The MVA patient was exactly a month older then Emma. She had the same name, the same hair color and she was wearing a sweater I think I've seen on our daughter because it looked very familiar. And she died the first thirty minutes of surgery. There was too much bleeding from the accident, not much could be done. She died on the table…and I think it broke me. It was so similar to what happen to Lena but that kid reminded me so much Emma that I realized I'm missing out. I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, and I can't lose another child. But sometimes that beyond any mother's control and I realize the only thing I can do is love her and give her everything she needs to be happy and safe."

"Exactly." Derek answered, leaning in to place a quick kiss on Addison's lips. "Are you coming to bed? She already fell asleep on your shoulder, you should just put her back in her crib so she can be comfortable and come rest. You can catch-up on all the cuddling tomorrow."

Addison nodded and shifted the baby in her arms to put her down in the bed. She covered her daughter with the white blanket in the crib and just as she was going to pull her hand away she felt her daughter grab onto her finger. She remembered Derek telling her that Emma would hold on to someone's finger as a way of letting them know not to leave her. She was sure that Emma was in a deep sleep so she tried to slip her hand away and noticed her daughter's eyes open.

Addison was two steps away from the crib, Derek by the door when they heard their daughter shakey voice call out, "Mama…" It was her very first word.

Addison turned back to see her daughter had grabbed onto the railing of the crib to pull herself up. "Did I hear her correctly?" she asked Derek as she moved back toward the crib where she lifted her daughter back into her arms. She turned back to the door to see Derek's mouth wide open. "Why is your jaw on the floor?"

"That was her first word. I mean, she's been babbling and everything she's said sounded vaguely familiar to actual words so I would just assume. But that was her first actual word." He mumbled, allowing a smile to grow on his face. He moved toward them and placed a kiss on his daughter's head. "I bet once you've got a few more words down we won't be able to get you to shut up."

"That can't be her first word. I haven't been around enough for that to be her first word." Addison countered. "You probably taught her that to make me feel good."

Derek shook his head. "Trust me, I did not plan this. I've been trying to get her to say 'dada' for weeks."

Emma felt her mother's arms tighten around her and she looked up at her parents and grinned. She liked that saying one word could get her so much attention.

"You think you can give us a few minutes alone?" Addison asked, for the first time willingly wanting to stay alone with the baby.

Derek nodded, gave his daughter one more proud kiss and walked away. Addison took a seat on the rocking chair in the room and cradled the baby in her arms, holding her close to her chest knowing the sound of a heartbeat usually provided comfort to babies. She felt her daughter grab onto her finger and this time she didn't pull her hand away.

"Mama." Emma whispered again, nuzzling her head further into Addison's chest while tightly gripping her finger. "I I oo."

Addison looked down into her daughter's eyes while they fought to stay open. She smiled, "I love you too, sweetheart." She replied while leaning in to place a kiss on the crown of the little girl's head.

*4 years later*

Addison and Derek stood side by side in front of scrub room sinks both trying their caps and masks. They were both about to scrub in for an in-utero spinal surgery that would get them more attention in their fields (if possible) and it would significantly improve the hospital's ratings. But for Addison it was like déjà vu.

"Maybe I should just back out and let Jenson take over for me." Addison through aloud while twisting her engagement and wedding rings off of her finger. She slid the rings onto a safety pin and attached it to the breast pocket of her scrubs then looked over to see him dropping his own ring into his breast pocket.

"Why would you blow off an opportunity like this? Do you know how much publicity the hospital has on this case?" he replied.

"Because the last time I chose a highly publicized case over my daughter it was the biggest mistake of my life." She answered with a hint of guilt in her voice. "I should not be scrubbing in right now, I should be on my way to my car to go pick our daughter up from kindergarten."

"Addie, Mark is already there. He text me. He was the first person standing next to the gate. He even beat those moms that are always wearing jogging shoes and capris who are like 30 minutes early. He plans on carrying her to his car so she can't trip over anything, then he will wrap her in bubble wrap then strap her into her car seat and he's gonna take her to Chuck E. Cheese for an hour or two to keep her busy while we're in surgery. After that he'll take her to our house, help with homework, give her a bath and put her to bed. Okay?"

"Derek, the last time I trusted someone else to pick up my child from school…" Addison's voice trailed off.

"That was not Mark." Derek insisted softly. "Mark canceled a date tonight to take care of Emma. He canceled a date. Mark gave up a fuckertunity, that's how much he loves Emma."

"A fuckertunity?"

"Yes. A fuckertunity. An opportunity to do some fucking. Mark and I came up with it. Don't be jealous that you're not as creative and brilliant as us."

Addison rolled her eyes and turned on the sink. "Jealous, right…" she scoffed. "You think I'm just being paranoid?"

"Yes!" Derek exclaimed then took a pause to reconsider. "You are being a little paranoid but not without reason. You are worried about Emma and that's normal because you're her mother and you're biologically programmed to worry about her all the time. But this time is different. Mark is a manwhore, yes but he would never put Emma in harm's way."

"How can you be so sure?" Addison questioned.

"Because he cries every time Emma cries. When Emma got chicken pox before we had a chance to vaccinate, Mark got chicken pox too just so they could spend more time together. He scratched her back, she scratched his. Mark would take a bullet for Emma then he'd get up and kill whoever tried to hurt Emma."

"You're right." Addison replied with a nod. "Remember when we went to the movies last week and Emma stayed over at Mark's and I went to pick her up the next morning?" Derek nodded. "He fell asleep on the couch with a tiara on his head, red nail polish on his toes, pink on his finger and he had a strangely sparkly eye shadow on."

"Are you telling me my best friend is secretly a cross dresser?" Derek asked as he turned off the water and prepared to move toward the OR.

Addison laughed and shook her head. "He said that Em wanted to play dress up so they went out to get make-up from a drug store and he let her do his nails and make-up and then they had a tea party with coke and before she fell asleep she told him not to get rid of any of it so they could continue in the morning…and he actually listened to her."

"See, he would do anything for our kid, Addison. He will do everything to make sure she doesn't get hurt. Okay?"

"Okay." She agreed, before stepping into the OR with one last personally influenced glanced in her husband direction. After they both stepped into the OR they would assume professional roles. They weren't Mr. and Mrs. Shepherd anymore but rather two high profiled surgeons, Dr. Shepherd and Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd.

Meanwhile Mark held is arm out wide open when he saw Emma running toward him. He wrapped his arm tightly around her and lifted her up. "Emma-bear!" he exclaimed enthusiastically. "I missed you! I haven't seen you since…this morning."

Emma giggled and tried to wiggle out of his arms to get back down on the ground but she failed because he only held her tighter. "Where is Mommy? She always picksed me up."

"She and your daddy had a very important surgery and no matter how they scheduled it they would not be able to come pick you up so I offered to get you. You don't mind do you? I mean if you don't wanna go to Chuck E. Cheese then I could just take you to the hospital. You can just hang out in your dad's office and look through his brain books." He teased while playing poking Emma.

"No!" Emma exclaimed. "Chuck E. Cheese sounds like a good plan."

Mark grinned as he carried the child over to the car. "Yeah, that's what I thought." He strapped her into her car seat and placed a kiss on her forehead, "Em, I'm warning you now- I know your mom has a lot of make-up and nail polish and shoes and skirts and all that crap but none of it goes on me tonight, got it? I've got a date tomorrow night and it look me a three days to get that nail polish off."

Emma looked Mark in the eyes and considered it. "I'll help you take it all off before bed time, I pwomise. Mommy has make-up remover and nail polish remover." She negotiated. "And we don't have to take a piktur this time."

Mark sighed, how could he say no to a face like that? "Fine." He hesitantly agreed.

Seven hours later Derek and Addison walked into the house ready to collapse from exhaustion. Addison made her way through the foyer toward the living room and saw Mark asleep on the couch with his arm hanging over the edge. Derek, who was right behind her, rolled his eyes and grabbed a decorative pillow off the arm chair. He threw it at Mark's face causing it to jump up.

"Emma?" Mark started on instinct, but once he rubbed his eyes he realized it was Derek and Addison standing in the room, not Emma. He remembered that he had put Emma to bed before he fell asleep.

"Is that my new Chanel lipstick?" Addison asked with a smirk starting to form.

"Seriously, Mark, are you wearing make-up?" Derek asked with an amused look on his face. "Thought I have to say, the color of the lipstick does go well with the color of your eyes." he added sarcastically.

Mark's brows furrowed together. He grabbed his cell phone and look at his blurted reflection on the screen. He gasped when he registered his reddish lips and blushed cheeks. He noted the dark eye shadow on one eye lid while the other was dusted with a pinkish color. "It was Emma."

"You're blaming our five year old?" Derek asked with a raised brow. "You're a tranny and you are blaming my five year old daughter?"

Addison whacked arm but could not keep a straight face. She started chuckling but the longer she looked at Mark the funnier the situation seemed. "I have make-up remover up in the master bathroom if you wanna clean up." She offered. "Not that you have to, completely up to you." She added sarcastically. "Where is Emma?"

"She's in her room. I put her bed. She was exhausted after our tea party."

"Tea party?" Derek asked, unable to hold back a hysterical laugh. "You are such a chick. You can call Addison's secretary tomorrow morning and schedule a pap smear."

Addison hit his arms again, this time hard enough to know it would hurt him. "Stop making fun of him. I don't see you putting on lipstick to have a tea party with our daughter. You take her to Chuck E. Cheese and use all the coins because you say she sucks at games."

"She does suck! I am a Skee Ball god! I get like 25 tickets per game. She gets 2!" Derek exclaimed defensively.

Mark rolled his eyes as he got up from the couch. "I'm gonna go use that stuff to take this crap off my face." He told them as he moved toward the stair case. "And I'll check on Em on the way back."

Derek nodded, the smirk still on his face from the vision of Mark with make-up. He took a seat on the couch and pull on Addison's arm so she could sit down next to him. Instead she flung her legs over his lap and rested her head against the arm rest of the couch. "I'm sleeping here. I don't wanna move. Our room is too far away, I'm too tired to walk that much."

Derek pulled off her 900 dollar heels and carefully placed them beside the couch. Usually he would have just dropped them but he knew she would yell at him about damaging her Louboutins and he didn't feel like listening to her yell. "You want a foot massage?" he asked, but started rubbing before she could answer.

"That's why I married you." She mumbled with a content sigh while trying to find a position comfortable enough to sleep in.

"Because I give you foot massages when you indirectly ask for it?" he asked with a quirked brow. "And here I was thinking it's because you love me and because we can overcome anything together, because we make one another happy. But it was just the foot massages?" he faked a hurt expression and earned a kick in the arm she's been whacking earlier. "I'm gonna have bruises all over this arm because of you."

"Good." She replied shortly, her eyes closed as she desperately tried to shut her mind to go to sleep.

They settled into a comfortable silence while Derek continued rubbing her feet but it didn't last for long. Derek couldn't help watch her from the corner of his eye. She'd changed since he first met her in college, he changed too but he felt relieved to know that they changed together toward the better and rather than growing apart they became closer. "Ad?"

Addison groaned and opened her eyes. "What?" she asked in an annoyed tone, only because she was just about to drift off into sleep.

"Are you happy?"

She pushed herself up onto her elbows and looked him in the eyes. "Right now or in general? Because right now I'm kinda pissed off that you won't let me sleep."

"In general." Derek clarified. "Are you happy about the way our lives turned out so far? Do have regrets? If you could do it over again would you change anything in the past?"

"Of course I have regrets, Derek. I neglected my child for the first 11 months of her life. I trusted a man with my daughter and he killed her and left me so broken that I never thought I could heal. I wish Lena could still be here, I wish I hadn't taken so long to understand that Emma was the only one that could make me understand that losing Lena was not my fault. I would do thing differently if I had a do over, I wouldn't let you walk out of my life so easily the first time, I wouldn't trust some ass-hole with my child, I wouldn't have hurt Emma like I did."

"But?" Derek prompted. "There is a 'but,' right? That's not the end of your little speech?"

Addison shook her head, assuring him that she had more to say. "No matter what changes I would want to make in my life, I would still want to you to be the person I share it with. I love you, I love Emma and I love the life we've built together. No matter what I could change in the past, what will happen in the future, nothing will change that."

The End!
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