Falling Apart, Barely Breathing

Chapter 6: Much Too Much

Chapter 6: Much Too Much

"Derek, we need to get a divorce. Now." Addison insists to her soon to be ex-husband as he sits down looking at her distractedly, clearly thinking more about their train wreck patients or god knows what but whatever it was it wasn't their divorce papers.

"Addie we can't sign them now just like that we need the lawyers to look at them with us and to witness them anyways" Derek counters right back to her. "Don't you even want to try counseling Addison, we would seriously try counseling" Derek tries to suggest to her.

And isn't it fitting that the divorcing couple can't even get together to divorce each other because they still can't stop fighting over every single petty detail as they derail all their conversations?

"So you're saying we can't even decide to get a divorce Derek really? Is that what we're saying?" Asks Addison as she begins to scream. "And don't even think about calling me Addie anymore. You lost that right ages ago when you walked out after letting me soak in the rain. No counseling session on earth will ever forgive what you did" Addison stomps out her feet now.

"Divorce isn't the life or death decision that needs to be made right now Addison" Derek is shouting right back at her now. "We'll reschedule the signing of the papers for later, you already shoved your wedding ring back into my palm last night and we can talk about all of the rest of it when there's not literally two dying people waiting for us to give them their answers" Derek screams out at her.

"Don't you think this is much too much Derek screaming at each other in an exam room about how much we can't stand to stay married to each other" screams Addison

"This is much too much for me too to have to fight with you even to talk about Derek agrees.

"I'm still calling you my ex-husband to anyone who asks" Addison insists.

"Done you're my ex-wife then Addison" Derek storms at her back.

And she's the first one to make a move towards the door but Derek's already pushed past her through the door frame before she's even taken a single step towards leaving the room.

"Some would say that because he's more stable so we should move him" Derek advises. "She's got more serious injuries so we should give her the best shot that we can," he says softly.

They're still in the scan room trying to figure out who they should extract first when Addison starts to feel the weariness of the nearly sleepless night to catch up to her so she's staying quiet.

"She's certainly a long shot," Burke says. "It's hard to tell now whether or not her sick heart can take it," he adds.

"We still have a shot at seeing him through if we save her" Doctor Bailey adds to the discussion. "Hell he'll hurt like high heavens for harder but if he's strong enough he can take it" she tries.

"I can't tell you what to do, it's not only my call" weighs Richard. "So I say we do what we do before we can't do anymore, I say we have to settle this someway somehow," he offers.

"We should vote" Addison speaks up for the first time since she's started here. "We should take all of our opinions into account and then we should see to it we've started them into the O.R here as soon as we can," she says wisely.

All the attendings plus Bailey agree so she passes them each a pen and paper and they pepper their ballots with either a Bonnie or a Tom before letting them fall into a spare scrub cab to be turned over by Derek and Addison the one at a time.

"Bonnie" Addison recognizes her ex-husband's handwriting as she pulls it out of the pile, being careful not to look up at him so everybody would know how he voted.