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Derek saw Miranda Bailey come around the corner toward the hospital entrance and he smacked his hands together, bounding toward
her. The look on her face told him that he was bordering on the ridiculous, but somehow, he didn't care. Victory was just
waiting to be his, and Bailey was going to help him get it.
"Why are you looking at me like that and how annoyed are you about to make me?"
The neurosurgeon laughed and moved beside his favorite resident.
"I need your help on something... something very, very important."
"That doesn't answer either of my questions, Dr. Shepherd. What is going on?"
"My wife is in the locker room."
Bailey stopped walking and rolled her eyes at him. "I see how that makes sense to you, but I actually like to have
a path of logic I can follow, and while Addison is a very good friend of mine, her presence in the locker room is not a shock
since we all start work in half an hour."
He laughed. He couldn't help it. Sometimes there was nothing quite so amusing as a Bailey smackdown, even if you were
on the receiving end.
"Okay, okay. Addison is sick. She's totally, completely sick. And she's saying she's not. Absolutely refused
to stay home in bed this morning even though I, her husband, a noted physician, told her she was sick. So I would like you
to be the Nazi and please go in there and bust her for being sick and tell her to go home."
It had surprised Derek for some reason when his wife and the fearsome resident of SGH had become friends, though in hindsight,
he wasn't sure why. They were oddly similar--both brilliant, both funny as hell, both two
of the first people you'd turn to when a crisis hit. He'd assumed those similarities might set up a rivalry of sorts,
but instead, it had drawn them together. The bond between them was evidenced now by the look of concern that replaced bemusement
on Bailey's face.
"Sick how? Does she have a fever?"
The duo began walking toward the entrance again as Derek answered.
"She threw up all weekend. Addison, you should know, never throws up unless she is sick. It's some odd biological
thing. Even if something totally grosses her out, she won't really throw up unless she's sick. Also, dizzy. She was dizzy
this morning, which is when I asked if she had
a fever, but she wouldn't let me check."
Bailey shook her head as they made it through the door. "Well, now she's just being stubborn."
"She's always like this," Derek reported. "Always. Not like she gets sick often, because she doesn't.
But when she does, she has to practically collapse before she'll admit it. But this time, she's sick and I know it, and I
just want you to back me up."
"Okay, enough of you." Bailey stopped outside the locker room door and turned to face him. "Just go stand
over there and try to look less smug before you get one of your wife's high heels flying at you in a bad spot. I will go
check on Addison."
He leaned against the opposite wall and folded his arms. Addie would never be able to fake Bailey out.
*****
Miranda Bailey was one of the best doctors at Seattle Grace. She was also a damn good friend. So it barely took ten
seconds for her to take in the tall redhead who presently sat on the locker room bench--her body leaned
forward, head pressed to the cool locker door--for her to know that indeed, Addison Shepherd was sick.
"Well, you're gonna be a sight today, trying to deliver babies while you can barely stand upright."
Addison turned her head slightly and glared at her over the crook of the arm she was using to support herself against
the locker.
"If Derek sent you in here to try and browbeat me into going home, you can go out there and tell him that I'm fine.
I clearly just ate some bad food Saturday night at dinner, and he's determined to try and turn this into a
round of 'I told you you were sick and you didn't listen.' I'm a doctor, Miranda. I think I'd know if I was sick. I'm
not feverish, I'm not contagious. I can work. I'm fine."
To prove her point, Addison shot up off the bench and attempted one of her usual statuesque and "in control"
poses. Instead, her body immediately rebelled at the movement and Miranda shook her head as her friend swooned
and lowered herself back down on the bench.
"I don't know how y'all ever thought you weren't gonna stay married. Who else could put up with your stubborn butts."
She felt Addison throw another glare her way as she walked back to the door and opened it.
"You..." she pointed to Derek. "Come in here, pick up your wife, take her to exam two, and wait there
for me. And you..." she turned toward Addison. "Not a word, or I will call the Chief and let him come deal with
you, and you can imagine what that lecture is gonna sound like."
Derek strolled over to the bench and leaned down. He put his right arm around Addison's waist and slipped his left under
her knees. He was fighting with everything he had to keep a smile off his face.
"Stop gloating."
That just made him laugh. Which made Bailey laugh. Which made Addison want to hit them both. But finally she laughed,
too.
"Drop me, and I swear, you are sleeping with the dog for the rest of the month."
"Yes, dear," he replied sweetly. Then he lifted her into his arms and cradled her against his chest.
"Just so you know... I'll never be happy you're sick. I'm just enjoying being right."
That got him another glare. And so Derek quit while he was ahead and took his wife to exam two just as the Nazi had ordered.
*****
"So?"
Derek looked at her expectantly. Miranda smiled at the irony of her thought.
"I'm afraid you do not win today after all," she announced. "Addison is not sick."
The look of shocked disappointment on the neurosurgeon's face was unmistakable.
"But... she nearly admitted she was sick."
"Read it and weep."
Bailey handed him the lab report and waited. She wasn't surprised when he read it over once and looked at her as if to
say, "you're right, she's not sick." Then he read it over again, looking for some kind of vindication. When his
eyes shot up at her, she knew he'd found it.
"You're sure?"
"Made 'em run it two more times to be sure."
She'd expected happy. Miranda had not, however, expected to be picked up, swung around and then kissed on the cheek.
"Fool, put me down and go talk to your wife."
Derek's laughter rang out all the way down the hall as he did just as he was told.
*****
"Hey."
Addison's eyes opened at his greeting. He'd known she wasn't sleeping because her feet had been impatiently bobbing back
and forth in her high heels.
"So what... Bubonic Plague? Or, you know, food poisoning, like I said."
He walked over and sat down in the chair beside her.
"It is neither Bubonic Plague nor food poisoning, and I cry uncle, Dr. Shepherd. You are not sick."
Addison let out a triumphant shout even though she swayed when she sat up and dropped her legs over the side of the bed.
"Told you! I told you."
"Indeed, you did, wife. You are not sick. You [i]are[/i] pregnant. But you're not sick."
She was just launching into a rant about how next time she said she wasn't sick, she expected to be listened to, but she
had only gotten about 15 words deep when what Derek had told her registered.
"Wh--huh?"
"Pregnant. You. Fertilization of an egg by male genetic material? You are an OB, Addie, I'd think you would know
how this works."
He waved the lab report in front of her, and Addison took it, reading it in disbelief. He understood. They had tried
for years to conceive, but it had never happened. No medical explanation, the tests and the experts said, just... no luck.
Till now.
"I'm gonna go get the ultrasound," he said, shooting up out of the chair.
"No!"
Her voice sounded desperate, and it stopped Derek cold in his tracks. He walked back toward her, this time sitting on
the bed beside her.
"Addison, it says it in black and white right there."
"It's not like we never got a false positive before, Derek."
And they had, he knew that. But this test was right. The second the printed results had sunk into his brain, Derek had
known it was true. So he leaned closer to his wife, wrapped his arm around her shoulders and dropped a soft kiss on the top
of her head.
"Sweetheart, this is Miranda Bailey we're talking about. When she says she had them run the test three times, she
had them run the test three times. And all three times--pregnant."
She leaned against him and took hold of his other hand.
"We tried for so long... I guess I'm just scared to believe it."
"I know," he said. "Which is why we should get the ultrasound and take a look."
"Later," she pleaded. "Please. Right now, I'm pregnant. The paper says so. If we look and there's nothing
there..."
It had happened before. The last time she'd thought she was pregnant, the last time two home tests had told her she was.
But she hadn't been. And then they had spent three years systematically destroying and then rebuilding their marriage.
"Just trust me on this." Derek pushed back from her and made her look at him. "I got a good feeling."
She nodded, resigned, and laid back down. Derek left the room and returned shortly with the portable ultrasound and Miranda
in tow.
"All right. Let's take a look at my future Godchild, shall we?"
Derek looked like a kid about to get the best Christmas gift of his life. Addison, on the other hand, looked terrified.
"I'm not looking. You just... tell me."
"Yes, ma'am," Derek replied.
"So do I have to give you the cold gel lecture?"
Despite herself, Addison chuckled at Miranda. Eyes closed, the redhead lifted her shirt up and exposed her belly.
"I think you can skip that part."
Miranda squirted the gel out and turned on the ultrasound unit. When she noticed that Addison's eyes were really staying
closed, the doctor cast a glance at the soon-to-be daddy. Derek shook his head and waved his hand to tell her to go ahead.
The wand began to move over Addison's belly, and Derek waited anxiously. And then it was there... right up on screen
in fuzzy black and white and gray... their baby. They were really pregnant.
"Addie."
"Just tell me. Can you see anything?"
He caught Bailey's attention as she glanced back at Addison. He mouthed the word "volume" and Miranda nodded
and reached for the controller.
The second their baby's heartbeat sounded over the machine, Addison's eyes flew open.
"Derek..."
"Yeah... that's our baby."
Everything from relief to joy washed over Addie's face as she realized that the test was right, that the picture in front
of her was real and that the sound on the speaker was very much that of their child's heart pounding away at light speed inside
of her.
"That's... our baby," she said, echoing her husband's words.
"Indeed."
Miranda let the happy couple drink in the sights and sounds of their unborn baby a bit longer before she turned off the
machine and helped Addison clean up the gel on her belly. Then she handed them a few grainy printouts to take home and moon
over.
"Miranda if it's a girl, right?" she asked as she headed for the door. "And Miran if it's a boy. I think
that's acceptable."
Bailey left them alone then to let them bask in their silly grins and the endless examination of the ultrasound photos.
Derek climbed up into the bed with Addison and his wife settled back in his arms before he sent her into a fit of laughter
with his next ridiculous statement.
"See. I knew you weren't sick."
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