. Welcome to a second prequel, folks. This chapter occurs chronologically before the previous one.
Easy Company 3
It was someone else behind the shower door that evening.
Meredith smiles and makes gooey facial expressions at the infant before her as she presses her nose to the glass.
This time George isn't here, but this always does make her feel better, and today she just seems to need to feel better for once, minus the tequila.
She giggles as the baby wiggles in its incubator.
"I don't think you're supposed to be here," Meredith hears a voice emerge from behind her, and that's when she knows she's been caught.
Shoot.
Meredith knows that she wasn't going to get away with this forever, but she thought she'd been more subtle about sneaking around like this, and ironically this is what's finally catching up to her.
"They make me feel better," Meredith mumbles, frozen to the spot, and preparing to be told off by the voice behind her.
"Yeah," the voice softens. "They really do."
Meredith turns around at this point, and she's surprised to find the owner of the voice smiling at her with an amused expression, rather than with an angry one.
"Can't really blame you, this is one of my favorite pastimes as well. So much that I've built a career on it," she laughs, and Meredith laughs along with her.
"So you're not working now?" Meredith inquires.
"Oh, I am. Sort-of. I'm on call now, but I don't have a surgery," she jokes, and Meredith nods at her.
"What, even Satan has a soft spot for babies," she smiles, and Meredith laughs out loud at the sight of Addison Montgomery-Shepherd calling herself 'Satan.'
"For what it's worth, I wasn't actually calling you that," Meredith offers, as she watches the baby wiggle in the incubator.
"No, that would have been my husband. Soon to be my ex-husband, probably," Addison says offhandedly, and Meredith quirks her eyebrow at that one.
"Really!?" Meredith tries not to yelp.
"Really," Addison chuckles. "He's not that interested anymore, and I don't see how dragging it out any longer will help either of us," Addison says wisely.
"He's not interested?" Meredith exclaims before she can contain herself.
"Doesn't seem to be," Addison says, not seeming to be too bitter about it. "Why?"
"Oh, I'm just... Surprised that's all..." Meredith trails off, hiding her blush with her hands.
"That he's uninterested?" Addison laughs.
"Yeah. I mean you're like, you so like, yeah," Meredith mumbles, and Addison's expression becomes even more amused at that.
"And what does that mean, huh, Grey?" Addison says teasingly.
"I'm not telling you that," Meredith grumbles.
"Not even to cheer up someone who has to ask for a divorce later this morning?" Addison asks her.
"Nope. You're not gonna hear anything about that from me. You're not gonna hear about me calling you 'leggy and fabulous,' because that would just be way too embarrassing," Meredith rambles.
"Ah but I believe you just did," Addison quips.
"And you're not gonna hear anymore about it. Nope!" Meredith cheers as she concentrates pointedly on the baby.
"And now I'm just pleased to hear that there's more," Addison smiles happily, as she looks at Meredith with an endeared expression.
"I never said that," Meredith tries to deny it.
"I filled in the blanks myself," Addison smiles, as she watches the blush form again on the blonde woman's cheeks.
"Can I hold the baby?" Meredith asks, trying to change the subject.
"Maybe later, she's resting now," says Addison, not wanting to disrupt it.
"Alright," Meredith takes that as a promise.
"Sometimes you know, I wonder when the instinct goes away. With babies we have a natural instinct to want to hold them. And then once we're older, it just... Dissipates..." Addison says a bit sadly.
"You want to be held?" Meredith picks out from all that.
"I never said that," Addison sighs.
"You implied it," Meredith counters.
"I did."
Meredith nods slowly as she extends a hand slowly over to Addison, giving her plenty of time to shift away if she doesn't want to be touched like that, especially given who she is to the woman.
Addison doesn't move away though, instead she just shifts closer as Meredith wraps her arm around Addison's shoulder and nuzzles her head under the taller woman's chin.
"He's a fool not to want to hold you," Meredith says softly, as she feels Addison wrap her arms back around her.
"Thanks, Grey," Addison says, and Meredith can swear she hears the redhead sniffle a little, before she recovers.
"She's really cute," Meredith says, motioning to the baby.
"She is," Addison agrees. "Do you want in on this case later?" Addison offers.
"If you don't mind," Meredith smiles.
"No problem," says Addison. "I'll have Bailey page you," says Addison, as she snuggles into the top of Meredith's head.
"You're not gonna tell her I snuck off of scut work to go visit the babies, are you?" Meredith asks her.
"I won't if you don't," Addison smiles.
It's nice for them both to be sharing the secrets, for once.
"Thanks, Addison," Meredith smiles as she marvels at the baby who has just woken up, and who is now babbling.
"Everyone has their guilty pleasures, Meredith," Addison says slowly, and Meredith's whole body heats up at Addison's words.
She's trying not to take it 'that way,' but when she meets Addison's eyes, she knows that the thoughts that had just flashed through her mind had also just beein running through Addison's.
"Are these guilty pleasures of yours things we should be talking about around the babies?" Meredith teases.
"Oh, most certainly not," Addison says.
"We'll have to talk about those some other time then, I guess," Meredith says as she gets a page, and reluctantly untangles herself from Addison.
"We will," says Meredith, and she takes Addison's smile and her nod towards her as a promise.
Indeed.
***** END OF CHAPTER 3
