Asystole ✷ Mark Sloan

𝟬𝟳𝟲 death by a thousand cuts

She was dressed in what she'd been unable to pack, the same heels on her feet that carried her through a days shift. The pain was buried at the back of her mind. Her face was contorted as she debated pressing a single button. 

Oh to hell with it. 

She pressed it to her ear and listened to the drone of the dial tone in her ear.

Unsurprisingly, Addison didn't get an answer.

Oh crap.

She pinched her nose, listening to the answerphone drawl back at her. She hadn't exactly anticipated having to leave a message and she'd hoped what she'd had to say would come more naturally in the heat of the moment.

 (That was out of character for her. Usually, she liked to meticulously plan everything she had to say.) 

It didn't help, either, that as she stood there, waiting for the answerphone to stop with the same apprehension as a prisoner waiting for the executioner's axe, that she felt Derek pestering her with messages about the resignation letter she'd left on his desk.

Fuck off Derek, Addison thought to herself, the thought more Beth than it was her own, Not now.

"Hey."

She'd never been good at leaving voicemails, and god, hadn't she left many of them. 

Speaking into that tiny receiver transported her back to New York, hurried, desperate and clawing her ex-husbands' number in with shaking fingers. 

(Oh, how ironic it was for her to be avoiding Derek's call now.) 

Addison had long ago figured that he'd changed his phone number and that her pleads had fallen on deaf ears (that was, to a degree, a relief seeing as she'd been sobbing for most of them, begging him to come back to their life together) but she liked to consider it good practice.

"Beth," Addison's voice caught at the back of her throat as she stared over at her gate. "It's me, Addison." (Of course, she fucking knows who you are. Get on with it woman.) "I'm doing it. I'm at my gate and the plane is going to start boarding soon..."

This is going really well.

It felt almost useless to talk to Beth when she wasn't even there. 

Sometimes, talking to the psychiatrist felt like trying to make conversation with a brick wall anyway, but this seemed like an extreme version of it. 

Addison was completely caught off-guard by her own pause, her heart beating in her mouth as she grasped her cell phone a little too tightly.

She had options for this message. She could've been the bitch that Beth expected her to be: the one who had manipulated New York and dragged Mark through the fire while leaving her own sister to burn. She could've wished bad will on her, telling Beth that it wasn't right to shut her off and that they just needed time—

"I just wanted to say I'm happy for you," Her voice sounded unlike her own, words straining and eyes stinging slightly as Addison pressed a hand to her forehead. She blinked, feeling the tears build and her throat clog. "I know we haven't seen eye to eye for a long time now... but I just want you to know that I'm happy for you. I know you and Charlie are going to be really happy together."

Another pause.

"I'm proud of you," Her bones ached with the weight of those words. 

They were truthful. 

"I'm really proud of you," She said, "I know that it must not be easy. I know that we've all fucked you over and that you find it really hard to love..."