❛ 𝐅𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄 . . . ❜
012. derek, indisposed
━━━━━━━━━━━
A small face peered through the doorway of Archer Montgomery's hospital room.
It was late evening and the eldest sibling of three was trying to talk himself into sitting up.
His head ached, his body felt as though it was fashioned from lead and it took him a lot longer than he would've liked to admit to notice the man squinting towards his bed.
Archer frowned.
"Can I help you?"
He didn't recognise the man, but he was able to recognise the hospital scrubs–– his immediate reaction was to sigh inwardly and figured that this was just another staff member coming to stare at the guy who'd gotten worms in his brain.
That happened often here, he'd had so many people coming to just stand and stare like he was some zoo animal. It was as annoying as it was humiliating–– that was the reason behind the glare that zeroed in on the stranger, making their ears turn red as they realised they'd been caught.
"Sorry," The man stammered his way through his apology, stepping forwards so abruptly that he almost tripped over himself, "I didn't want to bother you––"
"Well," Archer groaned lightly as he shifted in his bed, "Congratulations... You did."
It was said so flatly that the surgical resident blanched, his cheeks flushing as Archer squinted over at him. (That gaze was so alike everything else about the family, vaguely disapproving and reproachful, as if the Montgomery family was built with defence and self-preservation in mind.)
Archer was too exhausted to reprimand him more than just a glower, but he just waited for him to say something useful. He waited for the doctor to ask him to give a blood sample or update the neurosurgery team on how he was feeling post op––
"Sorry," He apologised again, and he eyed the state of the bed-ridden man,"I'm looking for Beth... I thought she'd be here with you."
"You're looking for Beth?"
Archer's echo was lined with bewilderment. When the man nodded in confirmation, Archer just frowned (or, at least, conveyed a vague sense of confusion with whatever strength his muscles had left).
"Why would you want Beth?"
Again, a light blush dusted the tops of his cheeks.
"I just need to...uh," He watched the man go through several stages of indecision, as if he was debating, silently, whether to be honest. If Archer could've managed it, he would've raised an eyebrow. "There was just something I needed to ask her... it, uh, it wasn't... it wasn't important."
Sure, Archer would take a guess and say, from the way the man stuttered, that it wasn't important at all.
With a sigh, Archer spoke, "She's gone to meet that girl that Shepherd's seeing."
"Do you know when she'll be back?"
"No idea," was his truthful answer. In all honesty, she'd said she back by now anyway, but he figured that she'd gotten caught up in something along the way. Then a beat passed, and Archer's eyes narrowed: "Who are you?"
It was a question that almost felt like an accusation: Who are you to be asking after this family?
Archer stared this doctor down, feeling like he was staring down Beth's prom date again, trying to intimidate and suss them out, all at once. It worked pretty well, he watched the man forget his own name, the words getting caught at the back of his throat.
"Doctor O-O'Malley," He said, looking momentarily stupefied. After a moment, he quickly added, "Sir."
(George couldn't stop his eye from twitching, his heart hammering against his rid cage as Archer held his peace in a clenched fist. The older man's eyes seared straight through him and, for the second time that day, George was reminded of the reputation this family held.)
After a beat, Archer was half tempted to swat him away like an annoying bug.
"I'll tell her you stopped by."
Jesus, what did Beth do to the guy?
──────
Weirdly, Beth had never actually hosted an intervention before.
Of course, she was familiar with them. Intimately familiar, in the same way that a bad employee was familiar with periodic performance reviews and a misbehaving student was familiar with the principal's office.
As she stood there, a cigarette in between her lips and her brow furrowed as she squinted through the dark towards a trailer, Beth knew that she could practically recite the whole 'We Care About You And We're Just Concerned' speech off-by-heart. The only difference in her telling it to Derek, she figured, was that she actually mean it.
She wasn't planning on screwing Meredith behind his back, no matter how pretty the blonde's eyes were.
But was this even an intervention?
She wasn't too sure, all she knew was that Meredith had described Derek as extremely drunk and extremely hostile and Beth had cracked a joke about how she could only be so lucky–– the blonde had asked, after that, whether Beth had ever had to do this before.
No, that was the answer, just as it'd been the answer a thousand times over:
No, Beth had never seen Derek like this.
No, Beth had never had to take the soap box.
No, she'd never been the one to save him.
But: Yes, It had only ever been the other way around.
"I'm not sure what's sadder," Beth began, clearing her throat as she approached Derek Shepherd's pity party, "The fact that you look like you haven't showered in a week or the fact that you're literally out-drinking an alcoholic."
She could smell the alcohol before she could see him: a crumpled form in a camping chair that had been propped up outside, what she assumed was, the infamous Shepherd trailer. He was alone, his bloodshot eyes finding her as she appeared through the twilight-gloom.
A beer bottle in one fist and the other clenched around the arm rest, Derek didn't speak; he didn't need to. He had that same absent look in his eye as he'd had in that hospital room. From here, Beth could see the bruising across his knuckles from when he'd beaten the crap out of his supposed best friend.
A shiner was developing, dutifully, just around his left eye.
Mark always had been good with his hands.
Beth let out a sigh at the sight of him, coming to a halt in the water-logged grass.
"Jesus Christ, Shep," She mumbled to herself.
He looked like hell. Dirty, unkept, dishevelled. She wondered if the stench of beer was doing him a favour; she hadn't lied when she'd said that it looked like he hadn't showered in a week. It was a startling aesthetic for a man who had always been so proud–– Beth swallowed the concern and the panic as it festered at the back of her throat.
"See, Derek?" She breathed out, more tired than anything else. With a raised hand, she gestured to the whole scene in front of her, "This is why no one would go on your crappy camping trips back in New York."
The way she said his name made her think of the way people had stared at her in the doorway of an ambush. Chairs configured in a circle, a session coordinator and a safe space of love, trust and honesty––
Fuck, was this what she'd looked like too?
Had she been slumped to one side, subsided like a building that just couldn't support itself anymore? All drunk and sorry for herself?
Too bitter and bruising to care that she was causing more problems than she was resolutions––?
"Go home, Elizabeth."
He chipped her full name out like Mark might have just dislodged teeth; she imagined them coming out, one by one, in a pool of blood at his feet. He sounded like a bitter old man.
(He sounded like the Captain.)
"Oh," Beth tried her best to keep the mood light, her lip twitching, "He speaks––"
"Just go home––"
"No, I don't think I will," She said with an electric smile. It was the sort that could, hopefully, power a nation. It was unnatural. "I'm not leaving, Derek, not until you get your ass out of that chair and go apologise to your girlfriend."
The decision to play Bad Cop had come while she'd sat in the back of that taxi cab, lips pressed in a thin line as she tried to find a strategy for this. She was supposed to be good at this, right? She had experience with not only alcoholism but therapy practice too, so wasn't this supposed to be her sort of thing? Wasn't she supposed to know exactly what to say?
(Spoiler alert: She didn't.)
She was, very roughly, running off what had pissed her most off in New York; that's what she wanted, after all, she wanted to get under Derek's skin for better or for worse. After all, there was a part of her that was exasperated by this:
Really, Derek, you have to spiral now? Now? Now when I need you to be here to help me out?
I came to Seattle, I'm staying in Seattle, I need you to keep me together.
Derek scoffed.
"Meredith really sent you out here to shake me around?"
"Sure did."
"I don't have to apologise for anything."
Dumb fucking idiot.
"Sure," Beth said, "Sure, you can just be a dick and get away with it, right?"
Did she have this much audacity when she'd been at rock bottom?
As much tough love had pissed her off, she knew that it was probably the only thing that was going to achieve anything. For experience, tender kindness had just been too easy to take advantage of; hence, why she guessed that she'd never been given it––
Beth sighed and prepared all of the classic cliches on the tip of her tongue. She'd take this easy, take this slowly. Derek was just in a bad place right now, she'd talk him through it, plead to the the very sensible common sense and morals they both knew he prided himself by, and he'd be back to himself before they knew it.
"C'mon," She began with, giving him a very stern but outwardly concerned look, "This isn't you, Derek––"
"No, it's not," He said back, without missing a beat, "But it is you."
Oh fuck.
Beth hadn't expected that one. He held her eye as he drained the rest of his existing beer bottle. The eye contact felt distinctively bitchy and backhanded, and Beth felt a lump gather at the base of her throat.
The words had been so serrated, so poignant that she knew they were supposed to wind her. They were supposed to make her pause, in a way that Derek had never lashed out against her––
Jesus Christ, he's a bad drunk.
"Yeah," Beth said, crossing her arms over her chest and scrambling to save face. She couldn't exactly deny it so she had to go for the next best thing, "You are acting like me–– Congratulations, you're acting like a selfish, twisted asshole."
She hated the bitter grin and chuckle that played out across his face.
"But guess what," A finger was jabbed in his direction, right into his blood shot eyes, "If you're Beth, I'm Derek, and that means I get the joy of dragging you out of your own vomit and making you get your shit together––"
In retrospect, yeah, maybe she had been this bad–– or No, she'd probably been worse. She could see it at the back of Derek's eyes; that was a hopeless man trying to find something at the bottom of a beer bottle and that's what Beth's life had tasted like for years (although her poison had always been a good bottle of Shiraz.)
Derek had seen her worse, she was sure of it.
He'd been there when she'd been shaking and screaming in the backs of alleyways, holding onto the ground with chipped and bloodied nails just to make sure she was alive. That had been some of her worst; they didn't need to compare because Beth knew that if he continued to make this a contest at who could out-do each other, she'd win by a mile.
She reached into her purse, drawing out a series of supplies, "I've got water, a sub some painkillers and a banana bag waiting for you in the ER. We'll stop off at Meredith's house, throw you in the shower, get that bad boy in your veins and then you can go apologise to Richard Webber and get this all sorted out––"
"No."
He shook his head.
"This can all be fixed so easily––"
"No."
"Life sucks, Derek, but you can't just get drunk when you feel like it––"
"That's a bit hypocritical, don't you think?"
The more she stood there, the more she realised that she probably hadn't been the best person to do this. All she could feel was the weight of his gaze and the silence; the combined pressure of the two threatened to flatten her.
There was such a contrast between the Derek that sat in front of her and the Derek that had smiled at her softly, placed his hand on her arm and said how proud he was of her.
What a difference four days, a bottle of whiskey and a six pack of beer made.
"I can't go back to the hospital," He drawled, voice sloppy as Beth frowned at him. "I can't go back and see Richard––"
"I get it," She said, "I get that losing control of things can be so embarrassing—"
"No, it's not—"
"But it's okay," She was so focused on the role of the hero, on the therapist that she was supposed to be, that she missed all the red flags, "We can get your job back, we can convince them to let you back—"
"I quit."
Oh fuck. That hadn't been in the brief.
Beth stared at him, her heart falling as she tried to mentally do the mathematics–– okay, she hadn't seen Derek quitting in the cards.
This was Derek and she knew how similarly they were built; workaholics, work-obsessed, ambitious and cutthroat. He chased surgeries just like she had. He wasn't a quitter. Beth had anticipated a drunk mid-life crisis kind of spiral, not this.
Derek didn't quit. Not surgery.
She'd assumed that they'd fired him. She'd assumed that this spiral had mimicked her own— Beth had gotten fired from her surgical internship and she'd felt it hard.
She'd fallen on her ass so abruptly as the rug had been pulled out from under the feet. It had framed The End, catalysed the eventual falling apart of everything that had remotely mattered. It had ruined her. She couldn't imagine quitting, she couldn't imagine choosing to take the career she'd worked so hard for, all by her own free will—
God, hadn't she held on tight to her surgical career, and God, how violently it had been ripped away.
"Okay," Beth said out-loud, her brow crumpling. She nodded slowly. She stooped, slamming a hand against the radio at his feet and beginning to clear the trash on the floor "Okay... okay... just... just get the fuck up."
There was a game-plan here, she could feel it.
All she had to do was think on her feet. She could do this. She could drag Derek through the mud and force him to be okay–– just based on the fact that there was no possible way that her week could get any worse. All it needed was some elbow grease and sheer determination.
She'd got this!
I've got this!
"I'm not going anywhere—"
I've got this!
"No, you are," She grilled out between gritted teeth, "I'm not going to let you fuck your life up, Derek. Not on my watch—"
Fucking... got this––!
Derek's eyes just gleamed at her, malevolent and not, in the slightest, impressed. He watched her grab empty beer can after empty beer can, hell-bent on ending this spiral before it hit rock bottom.
"What are you doing?" His exasperated question slurred at the edges, "Just give up, Beth—"
"I'm being you," She repeated, "I'm doing what you used to do to me, remember?"
"You think you can?" He asked.
(No, was her silent response, But I'm gonna try.)
Being the hero had never been her forte. She'd always been more accustomed to being the bad guy–– it wasn't glamorous but, most of the time, it was a whole lot more fun.
"What?" Beth almost challenged, eyebrows raising, "Kick your ass? Without a doubt."
"Just go home."
"Funny thing that," She said, her face twisting at the realisation, "I think we're roommates now."
"What does that even mean––?"
"I'm staying," Beth found it a lot harder to say to him than she'd anticipated. She drew in a long breath and flashed a very bright smile, "I'm staying in Seattle so you need to put yourself back together so you can be my big brother while Archer is recovering––"
(Why was it that the one person in Seattle who was supposed to understand what she was going through was just completely incapacitated?)
Derek scoffed to himself, "I don't need to get my shit together. I'm not a surgeon––"
"You're still a member of society––"
She watched a muscle twitch in his jaw but then, for a moment, he seemed to mourn.
"None of this is okay," Derek said it with frustration and it wasn't her. There was a deep grief in him, one that he couldn't digest. He leant to the side, grabbing another can of beer from the pack at his feet. "None of this is okay... None of it..."
Despite how dark it was and how desperately she wanted to convince Derek to sober up, she really knew that feeling.
She was reminded of the story Meredith had told her in confidence, heart on her sleeve and chin bouncing with the determination to not sigh–– the rumours had been right, Derek had lost a patient and it had inspired the hospital to did up his success rate. They'd left Derek to stare at it, drink it in like his first drink, the sort of crappy alcohol that just made you sick and left a horrific aftertaste.
It wasn't okay.
"We can get your job back, Derek," Beth said tenderly. She wasn't sure how, but she'd find a way. That was the sort of thing they did for each other: moved hell and earth to make the impossible possible. Derek was family. She'd find a way. "We can get your sobered up... get you into that office and we can sell your soul if we need to––"
"I don't want that job back," He said it with so much conviction that she almost believed him, "I don't need it. I don't want it—"
"Derek, your job has been your whole life," She felt as though she was talking to a child. Did he need her to dress him too? "It's all you've worked for, don't be a jerk... don't throw it away—"
"I'm a grown man—"
"Yeah," She sighed through her teeth, "You are and you're embarrassing yourself."
"You know what's embarrassing?" Derek stated so firmly, and Beth couldn't wait for whatever spiral he was about to lead them both in, "Having to sit there and learn that you have done more damage than good... that all of the years you've spent trying to save lives was just a waste... all of those years... all of that time... all of those hours and all of that money—"
Jesus Christ, Beth thought to herself, When did everything get so dramatic?
"Even with you," Derek said, and Beth felt her body tense, "With all of that work that you did... all of that time and effort... your whole surgical internship just—"
"Derek."
"People keep dying—"
"I know," Beth said very softly.
"You can't know," He said, "You never became a surgeon."
Her eyes, very briefly, averted to the floor.
She guessed he was right, she wouldn't understand the weight of grief on such a scale. He'd been a surgeon for nearly two decades and she'd been a surgical intern for two years. Those two things didn't match up. She'd lost patients, but not on this scale.
He really was right–– she would never understand––
But, then her eyes slipped up to the can of beer in his hand.
Although he was correct, it didn't stop her whole body from clenching so tightly she couldn't breathe.
"No but I get it," was Beth's reply, "The feeling that you get when you look up and just... just figure that the whole career was for nothing. That feeling that you've wasted so much time or made the world worse... that impulse to drink it all away––"
"I've killed more people than I've saved," Derek interjected, and his voice was sharp, "I think I deserve a day off."
"But will it just be a day?" Her question made him pause, "You're right, I know how this goes, remember? I know it's not just a day off... it's not just a drink and it's not just––"
He shook his head.
"That's not how this works––"
"Is it?" Throwing question after question at him as he grappled with the coherence of sober reality felt like a very good strategy. "Look at yourself, Derek–– you look like crap––"
"You don't know anything," Derek said very firmly, and his bloodshot eyes haunted her from a handful of steps away, "You've only just got here... you don't know what's happened––"
"That's not—"
"You went away, Beth," He said, and she felt the weight of it in her chest, "You haven't been here, don't pretend that you know what's going on."
Again, Beth held her breath, internalising his words as his eyes held hers. She felt the same silent pressure that had been present between Sam and Derek; Derek had left and he wouldn't understand. What a wonder it was for it to appear so briefly; Beth couldn't understand why he said it like that to her.
Jesus fucking Christ.
What did this city want from her?
"Then tell me," Beth said, and, for a very brief moment, it was a beg, "Talk this out instead of drinking this away. I'm a psychiatrist that literally specialises in grief and loss, Derek–– tell me what's going on and I can help."
He gave her a look that told he wasn't impressed, that she wasn't doing a single bit of justice to all of the times he'd pulled through and helped her.
He half smiled too, and she wondered whether he was just amused by all of it–– really? Beth had come all this way out into the suburbs of Seattle to come stand on an empty plot of land, look into this man's eyes and just let him shit on everything she'd ever achieved.
What was this? Had Derek, Mark and Addison just agreed to take turns?
"The problem is no matter how much you try, everything fails," She wondered if he knew what he sounded like. They were going in circles, listlessly. He waved his can of beer expressively, with the grace of a man who had been drinking since well before noon. "No matter who you are–– your marriage fails, your patients die and your career is––"
"You saved Archer's life this week, Derek," Beth reminded him; forever grateful that out of all of those statistics, Archer had been a good one. "You pulled off the impossible––"
"And I killed about a hundred others," His tone was so bitter, inflected by a curl in his lip, "You're not supposed to be the optimistic one, Beth, it doesn't suit you."
You're telling me.
"Desperate times call for desperate measures," She said, letting out a long breath, "Look, just get in the taxi and we can get you some water... sober you up and take you home to Meredith––"
"You're not the knight in shining armour, Beth––"
"Yeah, sorry, I couldn't get the whole suit through airport security."
"I don't need to apologise––"
"Sure, Derek, keep telling yourself that––"
"––Because I don't think I'm a good person."
She hadn't seen that coming. Sure, she'd been able to see the self-loathing in his eyes, the way that in pooled in his eyes and bunched in the clenched of his fist around a can of beer. But, there it was... There, Right There.
Oh Fuck.
Now she really recognised this spiral.
"Derek," Beth began.
"If I'm not saving lives, what am I doing?" It was such a scathing question and Beth struggled to answer it. The breath caught at the back of her throat and she just stared at him–– stared as Derek Shepherd vocalised the struggle at the back of his head. "I've killed people... I've caused so much harm, ruined so many lives–– that's not honourable, that's not a career? That's a disaster––"
"It's the job," Beth murmured, "You know it is, Derek, it's the job... it's Neurosurgery––"
"It's bullshit," He corrected sharply, and she almost flinched. It was always a cold day in hell when Derek swore. Curse words had never suited him. "How is it fair? So I'm not doing it... It's a waste of time. I'm done with surgery–– No matter what there's going to be another fifty husbands like that... wives... how can I justify that? How can I go to work and deal with that, Beth? You want me to talk this out? Let me know how the hell to deal with that."
She just stared at him.
How could she tell Derek, honestly, that things were going to get easier?
The son of a bitch had chosen the area of surgery that had the highest fail rate. He'd chosen the rocket science of medicine, the one where everything had to be precise and margins with so small that they had to deal with decimals that looked like Pi.
Beth let out a very long breath, knowing that maybe she really had been an overachiever with this.
She had to give it to him, though, he was really good at coherent thought while piss drunk.
"Holy shit," was what Beth opted to open with, "You really are just a bitter old man."
He snorted to himself, dismissed her words with a shrug of his shoulder and took a long, gasping mouthful of beer. But she wasn't finished, in fact, she hadn't even begun.
"I can't fucking believe you," Beth stared at him, at the man who had fallen off of his high horse and fallen, face-down, in fuck-knows-where in suburban Seattle. She shook her head, taking on the heavy burden of his dark, scathing stare without a single flinch, "Look at yourself, Derek. Really look at yourself, right now–– What would the Derek I knew in New York say if he saw you, sitting like this––?"
Derek just stared at her, his jaw clenched.
"You're whining about life being unfair," That was the part that made Beth want to laugh, "You, Derek–– You with your professional success and acclaim, despite how many people you might lose–– You're one of the most influential neurosurgeons in the country. You with your whole career... Your promising relationship with Meredith... with your perfect hero hair and your shiny trailer that probably cost like ten of my current paycheck––"
You, who handled the fallout of New York so much better than I ever could.
You with your ability to gift forgiveness as if wasn't the equivalent of cutting out your own heart and serving it on a platter.
"Your life isn't unfair, Shep," And that, Beth deeply believed, "Your life is just like anyone else's... You just chose to go into the surgical field with the highest mortality rate. If you want to really talk about life being unfair, let's fucking talk about life being unfair–– I mean look at me, right now, Derek. I've had the one of the crappiest crap week of my life, and that's saying a lot."
Again, Derek didn't speak.
Fantastic, Beth thought. She thought it was due time for her to be allowed a monologue. Just a moment of self pity. Just a moment.
"Everyone's life is unfair, you're nothing special," Beth said, and she felt her heart clench with the assertion of it, "You're a rich white man with a successful career and you're just feeling grief like everyone else–– because guess what? People die... we lose shit and we lose our goddamn minds and we just have to take it–– "
She did have this... for better or worse... Beth had this.
"we have to take it because otherwise you're two years into a cocaine addiction," she shook her head, "You're... You're decomposing in some police precinct waiting for your sister to post bail... which by the way, she's late to do because she's busy getting her shit off with your boyfriend..."
This wasn't as cinematic as his speeches had been. They'd all been about morals, ripped straight out of some biblical text–– stuff about demons and impulses and doing the right and better thing; Beth, meanwhile, left him with the mental image of Addison and Mark and wandering hands.
"You're right, I don't know crap about losing a patient," Despite his silence, Beth continued, "It's been five years since my surgical internship... but I know what it's like to lose the people you love... and if you don't get yourself out of this funk and back into that house... you're going to burn all of your bridges."
"Sure," He said, and he laughed just as she had, "Sure––"
"Remember Meredith?" Beth asked, her head tilting to the side, "Remember the woman you were going to propose to––?"
"Of course I remember Meredith––"
"You're being an idiot," She sighed, "You're being a fucking idiot—"
"Don't call me an idiot—"
"Then what else do you want?" Beth asked, her eyebrows raising, "Asshat? Dumbass? Douchebag— I can keep listing them until you find one that you like— find the glass slipper that fits—"
"Is this your best shot?" was Derek's only counter. He sounded, very vaguely amused. "You think insulting me is going to work?"
"You're Derek fucking Shepherd," Beth interjected, "Start acting like it."
An ample pause played out between the two of them. Beth found herself staring at Derek until the image of him was printed on the inside of her eyelids–– she'd remember him like this for a while, especially after what he said next.
An unshaven, dishevelled mess that appeared like a shadow of the past, haunting an empty plot that was supposed to mark the foundation of his new life.
For the record, Beth truly believed that he didn't have anything to complain about. He had a good life. He had the sort of life she'd spent years working to achieve; of course, his divorce wasn't desirable but Beth was a Montgomery, she figured that an inevitable divorce was just coded into her genes somewhere.
When she'd seen him in the radiology department, Beth had only felt envy. In the same way she envied this clean slate Mark and Addison had both found, she envied Derek's ability to start again. She envied his stupid hopefulness, his stupid surgical career and his stupid almost-engagement with the legacy blonde––
For a moment, Beth's mind found it's way to Charlie.
She thought about his hopeful smile as he got down on one knee and cross-compared it to the glimmer in Derek's eyes as the surgeon had insisted that Meredith wasn't a midlife crisis, she was the real thing.
Mark's shadow eclipsed whatever light raised in it's path.
How nice it must be, She thought, To be able to love again without fear.
"Isn't it exhausting?" Derek asked.
Her eyebrows rose at the question; Beth was, by all means, very interested to hear his response. She tilted her head to the side, watching closely as Derek smiled at her. It was a slanted smile, the sort that foreshadowed the bloodshed that followed.
"How do you live with that?" His second question made her pause. This time, it wasn't pitched as a means to an end, but as a genuine enquiry. Her heart jumped into her throat. His eyes were sharp with scrutiny, "You're standing there, telling me how hard life is and you're sober. How do you even cope?"
Beth let the mystery sink into her skin.
It was like a chill, causing all of the hair on the back of her neck to raise. Her teeth sunk into the flesh on the inside of her cheek, a sharp pinch of pain. Her grasp tightened on the bottles in her hands—
Oh, he wanted to go there?
"Don't criticise me," Derek said, and his tone dragged at the back of his throat like a child reluctantly dragging their feet. "Don't say you're being me... being the person that can give a pep talk, Beth... We both know who you are."
(It came to her in a blink; the wildcard, the long nights, the shattered bottles, the zig-zag of powder lines against countertops, the rip of her vocal chords, the sway of her morals—)
We both know who you are.
Beth's mouth was dry and, for a very long minute, she found it impossible to blink.
She was held so tightly in the memory of everything that it was difficult to breathe— her body hollowed itself, cleared out every piece of her, and then rebuilt it quickly, all in the span of a few fleeting moments. She cleared her throat, willing her whole world to keep moving.
She couldn't allow herself to linger on that— She wouldn't—
And then he raised a can of beer.
Beth's eyes fell to it. She watched, so intently, his pale hand extend it. It was a new can, grabbed straight from the pack—
There was something dark there, just in the way that he offered it. She saw it on his face, in the gaunt twisted face of the man on the edge; the same face that had welcomed with friendliness and knowing, now raised an eyebrow and waited for her response.
It was a challenge, a question.
Holy shit, Beth thought to herself, I'm out of my depth.
She figured it was a pretty shit time for her when she couldn't guarantee that she would turn that offer down. Beer has never been her thing, but this had— this cloud of self-pity, it's what had drawn Beth to adopting that stool at the bar and staring into the bottom of that single shot.
She'd been addicted to that resentment towards life just as she'd been addicted to the drugs and the alcohol–– Self-hatred and pessimism had been her greatest vice. Ultimately, Beth was convinced that she had spent so much time being miserable that she'd forgotten how to be happy.
All the while, the can hung between them.
Beth's chin raised to look Derek in the eyes–– She wasn't sure what level of asshole you had to be to try to relapse an alcoholic just to feel better about yourself, but Beth figured that it was at least triple figures.
"You're so lucky," was all Beth said, and she said it with her tongue between her teeth, "You're so fucking lucky I know how much you'll regret that when you sober up."
And then, she paused. A traitorous glance towards a bottle of wine by Derek's foot. A long breath left her lungs. The noise was nothing but pure despair–– Softly, Beth chuckled with a perfectly bloodless smile. She shook her head.
"And holy shit," The disgraced Montgomery breathed out between chapped lips, "You're so lucky you're loved."
──────
Addison left Seattle that evening.
Her flight was scheduled two hours before Beth's and that didn't exactly settle well with the youngest sibling.
It left a taste in her mouth that was distinctively metallic; maybe it was blood? Maybe it had everything to do with how Beth seemed to bite on her tongue whenever she saw the redhead in the corner of her eye?
Either way, while Beth hadn't even booked her taxi, Addison was fully prepared. In fact, it was the first sight that Beth saw as she returned to the hospital: the woman of the hour freshly scrubbed out of surgery and freshly packed, carry-on luggage at her feet as she waited for her ride to the airport.
"My flight is soon..."
Addison called out to Beth as the very tired woman crossed the threshold into the building. Mentally, Beth was ready to go pass out on the chair in the corner of Archer's hospital room, but physically as she could do was freeze as Addison gave her a hesitant smile.
"I, uh, I just wanted to say goodbye."
The way Beth looked at her was not kind; to be frank, after trying to convince Derek to as much as take a shower (and failing miserably) Beth didn't know how much bullshit she could handle. She was suffering from the failure of being able to repay a debt she'd owed to Derek for years and now stung, vaguely.
Her nostrils were still swamped with a dizzy cocktail of pine, beer and extreme BO, causing her thoughts to wheel with the incoherence of a woman who, in all honesty, just really needed to lie down–– But Addison trapped her in her path.
"Okay," Beth replied and she nodded.
The handful of steps between them still felt so much wider. There was her crutch word again: Okay. Everything was perfectly, irrevocably, irrefutably, irresponsibly just Okay. Just as Derek had been sitting out in the Seattle chill and just as Beth had been with her knees to her chest in the OR waiting room. That was Okay and that had been Okay too.
Jesus Christ, Beth thought to herself, I need a smoke.
"Okay," Addison repeated back to her.
It was delayed, horrifically awkward in a way that made Beth's toes curl.
She wished Addison would just rip the band aid right off–– She wished the neonatal surgeon would just wipe that stupid, earnest smile off of her face and leave when she had the opportunity.
But no, with despair, Beth watched as Addison faltered for a moment, her chin dropping to stare at the ground by Beth's feet.
"Okay..."
Was she thinking about it too?
Whenever Beth looked at Addison, it was all she could think about–– the weight of Mark's body on top of Addison's, how it must have felt to kiss someone who Beth had loved so much––
Jesus Christ, Beth blashempised again, I really need a smoke.
She was pretty tempted to tell Addison to just get on with it.
She was beginning to get the idea that tonight was just that kind of night. Maybe she'd missed a company memo to the human race? She could imagine it:
Today, on this very night, we collectively beat the living crap out of Elizabeth Montgomery, just for the hell of it.
Was this some grand scheme to get Beth and Mark equal once again; two pretty souls, black and blue trying to find something obscure within themselves over a shared cigarette? Oh give her a break!
If Addison needed notes on how to make Beth die inside, Beth was sure she had Derek's hidden away somewhere. If she needed an insult drunk, bitter Void-Derek had had countless––
"I don't want to go."
That wasn't an insult.
It was an admission that Beth couldn't quite decipher.
She stared over at her sister, a woman who had always been such a figure of poise, resilience and bitchery, in her life and watched as Addison, for a moment, seemed to fight against tears.
It caused such a deep bewilderment to grow in Beth; it planted itself somewhere at the back of her rib cage and took each organ one-by-one, ensnaring it in thick, unshakable vines and gripping them tight.
Addison shook her head.
"I'm not good at this, Beth," Her voice was hushed, "I'm not..."
Beth just continued to stare.
Was this what she thought it was?
For a while, Beth tried desperately to finish that sentence.
She took those two words 'I'm not' and harassed them endlessly in her mind. She smashed word after word into the end of it, her heart squeezing tightly in her chest at every guess.
I'm not perfect.
(That felt like the diplomatic response, right? If Beth had to suggest one, that would've probably been it. It was perfectly Addison, giving her the lead up to explode into a very self-sympathetic story of how, just like Derek, her life was so deeply and tragically unfair—)
Or, better yet: I'm not sorry.
(Maybe, at least then, Addison would tell the truth.)
Instead, the reality came with a scrunch of Addison's nose. The older Montgomery sister let out a shuddering breath and looked upwards, trying to hold whatever composure she had left.
"I'm not good at this," She began.
Beth just sighed, "Addison—"
"I screwed up," The woman said, "And I'm never going to forgive myself for it."
Well. I Screwed Up felt like an understatement.
Beth found herself looking at her sister as if she didn't recognise her, watching Addison's face as it twisted in deep thought— she could tell so plainly that there was a line here, a seriousness about how to string together every word.
Idly, Beth wondered whether Addison had been thinking about it too: Was she thinking about how brazenly Beth had laid everything out? Was she thinking about how Beth had looked her in the eye, asked her if she was Sorry and then had been so deeply dissatisfied by Addison's response.
She watched Addison's hands clasp in front of her. Briefly, a thumb traced where a wedding ring has once sat.
"I have been so terrified," She continued with a long breath, "I have been terrified of you for years... of what you'd say... of what you'd do... I've spent so much time trying to think of what I'd say to you... maybe too much time, but I know that no matter what I say... no matter what, it still happened. I still did what I did, and you'll probably still hate me."
Beth's eyes, very slowly, found Addison's face once again.
"I know that I'll probably never be able to make up for everything that happened," Addison said, and she held Beth's gaze, tenderly, with glassy, tearful eyes. She gently shook her head. "And that's okay... I understand why. When I think about New York... when I think about what happened I... I just feel so disgusted. It's like there's this feeling in me that I just... I can't shake it off, I can't ignore it. So, I can't even imagine how you feel about it—"
"Addie..."
Beth's interjection was that of dissatisfaction. A very light shake of her head and the lowering of her chin; if Addison had been her patient, Beth would have told her to rethink everything she was saying. This was not a good apology. This was not good at all.
She seemed to realise that, a breath getting caught at the back of her throat.
"Beth, I'm—"
"Look, Addison," A tired sigh carried the words from Beth's chest, "I've just spent an hour of my life trying to talk Derek down from his life crisis... If you want me to stand here and listen to you talk about how hard you life has been since you ruined mine, I don't have the patience for that. I don't... I don't want to even—"
"I'm just really, really sorry."
The apology came as Beth went to tell Addison that she never intended on reconnecting. It cut Beth's words short and caused the air to get caught in Beth's lungs— it wasn't just the words, but the way Addison said it—
She said it, unfortunately for Beth's grief and resentment, like she actually meant it.
Beth bit down, hard, grinding her molars down until her voice came out again: small, brutally honest and delicate.
Oh for fucking fuck's sake—
"I should have never gotten between you and Mark," Addison's eye contact didn't break, not once. Beth was locked in place by their father's eyes, "I should have talked to him... I should have said something— I feel terrible. I will always feel terrible. I should have never even thought about it... I'm so sorry, Beth, I'm so, so sorry—"
What a contrast this was to the woman who had stood in the door of Archer's hospital room, brow furrowed as Beth asked if she had any regret at all.
She could see the guilt weighing down on her, visibly straining her shoulders and causing her arms to wrap around her own midriff as if to keep it all within her. 'Sorry' repeated, over and over until Beth almost believe it— the younger sister turned her cheek away and found herself staring over the hospital reception.
As twisted as it sounded, Beth had always imagined an exchange like this.
She'd once watched the movie Heathers and imagined herself in the place of Chandler, forcing Veronica Sawyer on her knees to grovel to the back of her heel— the whole of the movie had spun a dizzying image of vengeance that had made Beth's mouth dry; she'd promptly asked her psychiatrist to up the dosage of her own medication.
But, nevertheless, Beth had spent years hoping for something a little bit more cinematic, a little more righteous— not just Addison Montgomery teary-eyed trying to process her own misery and find forgiveness.
"You think this is all just because of Mark," Beth said almost plainly. She spoke while staring at the sign bearing over them, declaring Seattle Grace Hospital as one of the most prominent surgical teaching programs in the country. "You think it's all only because of you and Mark, but it's not—"
Addison winced slightly as Beth tone curved into something her thin patience hadn't been able to stop.
Oh yeah, this was the sort of monologue she'd been practising in the mirror for nearly a half decade.
"Beth—"
"I'm sorry you feel miserable," Beth interjected sharply, eyes narrowing, "I'm sorry you've felt like crap since you decided to have an affair and screw my boyfriend— you talk about how you feel... you talk about how you can't do this and you can't feel that— but what about me, Addison?"
The woman just stood there, words caught in her throat. She was rendered incapable of providing an answer.
Maybe she didn't have one to give?
"You helped ruin my life," Beth continued, unfazed by the silence.
(Good, stay silent. The exchange with Derek had left her fired up and ready to give someone hell, might as well be the person who had helped to ruin everything Beth had held dear to her.)
"You help ruin my life and you can't even look at me in the eye for longer than twenty seconds," Beth almost laughed it out between numb lips, "I can see it on your face— on your fucking face, Addison. You're only apologising right now to make yourself feel better."
She couldn't stop thinking about it: the way Addison had looked at her when Beth asked her if she was sorry. She couldn't believe that she was the one who had had to bring it up.
What universe did they live in, in which Beth had to solicit an apology by force out of someone who had once told her they looking out for her, that Beth was no longer in a position to make decisions for herself? How had times changed that drastically?
How was Beth now telling Addison the key to her survival, dictating the words to come out of her mouth—?
"You should be sad," Beth said, "You should be miserable..."
"I'm sorry," Addison repeated, "I really am sorry, Beth. I don't expect you to forgive me... but I would appreciate it. I know we've been through a lot as a family and just... I think the idea of being a united front would be––"
Beth stopped listening there.
She stood there and felt the words wash over her, fractures of rhetoric that she should have seen coming a mile away.
A wanton thought at the back of her head remarked at how it was a wonder Addison had never gone into politics–– she had that finesse about her, the perfect socialite's smile, the penchant for public service and the unfathomable ability to make even the most intimate, personal affairs seem painfully logistical.
This was not an apology, this was a strategy.
Beth felt a lump congeal at the back of her throat.
She wasn't sure why she was so surprised, but she was. She was surprised in a painful way, like how you hadn't expected a rose to prick you with its thorns or a spooked family cat to sink their claws in that deep. It was all in the chest, a weight on her heart that made her pause.
"...so we need to be a united front," There was that phrase again: United Front. It made Beth feel like she was a political campaign intern, watching as the manager paced thin lines down a ballot hall, hashing out strategy for PR and recuperation. "I know this is difficult and I really didn't want to ask... but I thought that it would be the best for us to just––"
"To pretend we get along?"
Beth blinked her way back to coherence, gauging exactly where this was going from the look on Addison's face.
She squinted at her sister as the ex-socialite blanched. She watched Addison realise, in real time, that this wasn't a strategy meeting in the middle of the midterms or a presidential intervention, this was their life.
A little breath escaped her at Beth's interjection.
"Yes," Addison said in a very soft, hesitant voice. Beth wasn't used to seeing her like this. She had to clear her throat, "I'll phone in from California and we'll talk about flying Archer back in a couple of weeks—"
"Holy shit."
Beth's remark caused Addison to flinch slightly. It was loud and halted in disbelief.
"Holy shit," She repeated, "Holy shit—"
"Beth—"
"No," Beth shook her head firmly, "Don't Beth me."
"It's just for Archer—"
"You don't think Archer is who I'm doing this all for?" Beth asked, her face twisting as she tried to digest Addison's blatant audacity. "Believe me, if Arch wasn't under a lot of stress already right now I wouldn't be caught dead in the same room as you—"
"I get that, Beth, I do—"
"No, I don't think you do, Addison."
She didn't. Beth was fairly sure of that.
She'd been fairly sure of that since Addison had looked at her and burst into tears, pulling her into a hug— She knew her sister, she knew how her sister worked. She knew that Addison was both one of the best people in the world and the worst. The woman that had once been her best friend now just...
Beth shook her head.
Suddenly, she felt as small as she had in that airport— she felt painfully overwhelmed, overshadowed like she was still standing in Manhattan underneath a skyscraper. She was filled with the same sense of dizzying vertigo; looking at Addison had the same effect as looking upwards at the Empire State Building.
She felt smaller than smaller. She felt insignificant— a handful of words that came from the woman who had sat in therapy for the last half-decade, precariously piecing herself back together:
"I trusted you."
Her voice was so low. It was more of an exhale than it was a voice. But, Addison heard it. In between Beth's anger and her hurt, there it was: the very tender, delicate sound of a woman that had been betrayed.
"I know," Addison said back. She was hushed too, as if someone had put the world on mute and left them to deal with their grief in silence. "I know, Beth, I—"
"Nothing you ever do will make up for that, I hope you know that."
They were broken beyond repair.
Beth couldn't look at her the same, conversations couldn't go the way they once had.
Even the way Addison spoke to her, tentatively, with more guilt than she did honesty, Beth knew that would never go away. It was their genetics, their inability to do anything but pretend that everything was okay–– but Beth was sick of pretending, she was sick of just letting things go.
The silence played out with the sound of Seattle filling all the blank spaces. The hospital intercom chimed, paging a doctor to a trauma that was playing out in this very building–– Beth couldn't help the way her lip twitched as the name echoed around them.
Doctor Sloan to Emergency Department... Doctor Sloan to Emergency Department... Doctor Sloan to...
"I don't expect you to forgive me, Beth," Addison said, speaking over the sound of their shared mistake. This time, she seemed to actually hold Beth's eye, capable of facing everything the brunette had just said. "I don't expect everything to be magically okay... I'm not asking you to forgive everything––"
She didn't need this speech. She couldn't handle another moment of self-martyring. She couldn't handle any of this at all––
"You're right," Beth cleared her throat, "But you're right, this is about Archer. It's not about us."
Beth had the rest of her life for her vengeance, she knew that. Despite all of the jokes she made about not making it very far, she knew where she was.
She knew that she was clean and coherent and had the willpower to stop herself from taking that beer from Derek. She had the whole time in the universe to make Addison's life hell, and oh did she plan on it. But not now, not while Archer needed them.
After living for so long in the past, Beth really needed to think of the future. Seeing Derek wasting away in his hatred, Beth was struck with the fear that would, forever, be her too.
"I don't think I want to forgive you," She said next, eyebrows bunching as she spoke without much thought. "I don't want to be your friend... I don't even want to be your sister... I just want Archer to be okay––"
Despair played out across Addison's face.
"Okay," She murmured, "Okay."
"But I would do anything for Archer," It was true. Beth was fairly sure she only had the capacity to love one person in the world, and that was her brother. For all of his flaws, Beth adored him. "If he needs us to play pretend, just for a few months... a year... I'll do it for him."
She'd given this a lot of thought. She could do it for Archer. If she could stand in an elevator and clench her jaw and not beat the shit out of Mark, she could tolerate Addison's existence. She could tolerate the woman's inability to admit that she'd screwed up, not just opportunistically, but because she really meant it.
An apology without a silver lining, a repent without a cause.
Playing pretend, too, was nothing really new. They'd watched their parents participate in a loveless marriage for years just out of necessity. Bizzy and the Captain had been so far gone into their fantasy that Beth knew their kids had gotten caught up in too–– it glimmered in the sad smile Addison gave to her as she leant over to grasp her suitcase.
They were products of a pipe dream, of a false security, a problem that had never been fixed. Every time something bad happened to them, they were completely incapable of dealing with it. Beth could pretend everything was fine, it was in her genes.
She watched a hesitation catch in the way Addison went to leave Seattle. The redhead paused as she went to turn, body stiff with defeat and eyes rounded with a sense of sadness that Beth couldn't allow herself to feel sorry for.
As much as this was for Archer, this was for her too.
Beth was standing her ground as best as she could.
"I'm sorry."
The repetition was small and almost pitiful.
It took everything within Beth not to smile.
"Yeah," was all the psychiatrist said in return, "You've already said that."
It wasn't until Beth had returned to Archer's room, head weary with what had been said over the past few hours, that she really allowed herself to face it.
She was staying. She was going to stick around. Seattle was going to be more than just a city that was caught in the rearview mirror. She let Addison leave with her despair and her terror and Beth figured that this city could be less scary that it seemed.
Mark didn't scare her. He never had––
"Hey, kid."
Archer was sitting, somewhat, upright, a medical journal on his lap as Beth, very tiredly, hauled herself through the door. His dark eyes followed her as she gave him a breathless smile. To the eye, she was untouched but tired, walking with a strain her step but, by all means, in one piece.
Emotionally and mentally, Beth felt as though she'd spent the last few hours dragging herself through a warzone.
"Hey old man."
Her suitcase was still in the corner of Archer's hospital room, shoved in between a potted plant and a armchair that Beth had adopted as her own–– she collapsed into the chair, her hand, briefly, glacing the corner of the bag she'd planned to run out of the country with.
She checked the time on the clock over Archer's bed.
Her flight was in just over an hour and a half.
"Addison's gone," Archer said, as if it were the most interesting news of the day. Beth hummed in response, nodding her head as she averted her eyes to the medical journal he was reading. Archer, meanwhile, just looked at her, "I don't know if you got the chance to say goodbye or––"
"Oh, I did," Beth nodded, "I, uh, I just saw her in the reception––"
"And?" He asked apprehensively. She watched his eyebrows raise but also watched him immediately regret it, wincing at the movement, "Who do I need to contact to get the Addison shaped pile of ash into an urn?"
She chuckled, but the sound was tired.
"There's no ash," Beth said, and that part of the sentence was honest. What wasn't, however, was the second half: "We're good."
She'd meant what she'd said before: she and Addison would never be Good.
They'd just be, they'd just exist, but for Archer they'd do their best.
The eldest Montgomery seemed to sit with that for a moment, staring at his sister as she smiled so convincingly at him. She hated to lie to him, but she knew how much he needed this; it wasn't his fault that Addison had fucked it all up, it wasn't his fault that he'd lost his family.
"Good?" Archer repeated.
"Good," Beth confirmed.
They were Good. Everything was unanimously, overwhelmingly, peacefully, miraculously Good.
He didn't question it, despite how much Beth knew he wanted to. She knew her brother just as she knew Addison, knew that he was probably very tempted to ask whether this was some deal with the devil, that a limb had been sacrificed along the way.
But he didn't, he just allowed Beth her perfect socialite's smile and listened to her make conversation about the outside world–– about how Beth was planning on staying with Meredith, Derek's girlfriend for a while, and how everyone was so pleased with Archer's progress––
(Funnily enough, Beth figured it was probably not the time to tell Archer that his neurosurgeon was currently having a nervous breakdown, so she left that part out.)
In return, Archer eased her mind with an account of his day. It wasn't exciting but it was honest, it was nice in a very calm way that didn't involve tequila shots, beer cans or a strategic sorry—
This was good, was all that Beth could think as she watched Archer manage a joke. Archer was okay, Addison was gone and everything would be fine.
Derek wasn't going well, but Beth had a feeling that Meredith was dependable. He'd found good people in Seattle, she could feel it. Despite how badly he'd fallen onto his ass, he knew that he was cared for, he was loved. He had people who gave a shit about him, that cared whether he drank his life away––
Yeah, Beth could only be so lucky.
But, she had Archer. She had him, and she sat with him for that full hour and thirty minutes. They talked about nonsense things and Beth enjoyed the normalcy of it. She'd missed it and now, with Addison long gone, she could have it for as long as she wanted––
In her peripheral, her cell phone buzzed on Archer's end table.
A NEW message from Charlie, stacking with all of the other unopened ones.
Fuck.
"Oh," said Archer, just as Beth debated on whether to text back, "Someone was asking for you earlier..."
Her brow furrowed, her mind running through every person who could possibly be looking for her. For the record, the list was extremely short. If she had to go on a limb, the only person who would have reason to hunt her down right now was Mark; she wondered, idly, how long it'd take him to realise that she hadn't left when she'd promised she would––
Oh, wouldn't that be a fun conversation to have.
––but the reality was No. Mark wouldn't have had the balls. Beth knew that he'd been able to survive Archer, even bed-bound. If there was one more thing that the Montgomery siblings definitely had in common, it was the ability to make Mark Sloan run in the opposite direction––
"An O'Malley?" Archer seemed unsure of who he was even talking about and it took Beth a hot minute to remember the small, mousy man who had kept her company. "He said he was supposed to talk to you––"
"Oh," Beth said distantly, and she nodded slowly, "Yeah, I, uh, I don't know what it's about but––"
"I think he's got a crush on you."
Her eyebrows raised.
"Really?" She sounded more sceptical than she did surprised, "You think?"
Archer snorted, "You should've seen the guy, he was blushing all over the place..."
"I've only spoken to him like twice," Beth said, and she shook her head, "He barely knows me, Arch. I think you're seeing things––"
The neurosurgery patient just chuckled, shrugging (and then wincing at the movement choice. But, even so, his teasing grin didn't falter.)
"I think you've got yourself an admirer."
──────
AUTHOR'S NOTE ! . . .
i didn't think it was possible to dislike flatline derek more than i did in the first draft but,, lol
next chapter: mark needs a date to a fundraiser in new york and beth, very reluctantly, has to play his date for the evening (FAKE DATING!!! ENEMIES!!! SOBS!!!)
WORD COUNT ! . . . 10300
REWRITTEN ON 13TH OF FEBRUARY 2022