Out Of The Dark

Chapter 1: That Fated Phone Call

Out of the Dark

Prompt: Can you write a story where Meredith comforts Addie after Bizzy slaps Addison in Private Practice because she didn't save Bizzy's girlfriend? I don't know if you've seen it, but it's in the later seasons of Private Practice. MerAdd. Meddison. Rated T.

Chapter 1: That Fated Phone Call.

SLAP. Addison heard the firm palm coming into contact with the right side of her cheek before she felt it and cried out "oh!" as she only starts to feel it at first.

But she felt it now, the cold sting of the blow radiating from a red mark radiating from the blood vessels beneath her skin.

Her own right hand was now pressed to it and she's turning slowly back to facing her mother, Bizzy, now in shock.

"You will save her life! Do you hear me, you will save her life" Bizzy Forbes commanded as her lover Susan Grant looked on in a concerned awe.

And as Addison turns to look at her mother, Bizzy, her jaw slackens and her eyes open wide as she looks deep into those tear-filled eyes.

And for once in their life neither of them has any blatant clue of an idea of what they should say.

*****

"My mother is a lesbian and her lover Susan Grant is dying" Addison blurts out the moment she picks up the call. "She's dying and there's nothing I can do to stop it" Addison gasps now at her own words.

"Addison?" The whispering voice on the other end questions as if she's surprised that this woman still had her number from all of those years ago.

"Oh, so sorry Meredith, I know we haven't talked a lot, you know not since the - Derek - You're - The - Wedding - But - Anyways - Addison stutters as she tries to form a coherent sentence but unlike her as it is, she hasn't prepared a speech to tell this story so she's grasping at nothing and plummeting in freefall with her failure at explanation.

"Are you okay?' Meredith asks in a sort of tender voice and Addison can hear shuffling in the background as Meredith must be moving around the house right now.

And she hears a familiar grunt from Derek so she guesses that she's woken up Meredith from having just fallen asleep and that she was lying in bed next to him but Derek is just too tired from operating all day that he doesn't wake up long enough to ask or follow her.

"What?" Addison asks because she isn't so sure she heard that last part correctly because Meredith had been hushing herself so not to disturb Derek as she fled the room for the kitchen and Addison seems sort of shocked to think that Meredith Grey would be one to ask how she was feeling, given who they had been to each other, and all.

"Are you okay?" Meredith asks in a normal volume now as she settles into her living room couch and she has poured herself a tall glass of something to drink as they talked.

"Thank you" Addison breathes out as a sigh of relief. It's a breath of fresh air, really that someone would be caring in the slightest about what was going on in her head right now.

"That wasn't an answer" Meredith pursues her and Addison knows that Meredith is right.

"I'm not sure if I know an answer" Addison sighs as if she wanted to add "it's complicated" at the end of that sentence, but it's implied.

"I think I know why you called me" Meredith starts, thinking it might be easier if she's the one that starts up the talking. "My mother wasn't easy to please either. Sure she might have won accolades and awards but being her daughter - well - I just never felt that I was good enough to please her, that's all" Meredith explains thoughtfully.

"RIght, that's why I called you" Addison confirms quickly.

Truthfully she's not even sure what motivated her to call Meredith at nearly one in the morning but she's sure as hell grateful that Meredith even picked up when she saw the familiar number.

She wouldn't have blamed her for letting it ring till the end or for hanging up on her right away.

At least that's how Addison feels people are communicating with her these days, through hanging up the phone on her or slamming doors in her face. Or by slapping her. She sighs.

"Well I'm glad that you called" Meredith answers honestly and if that doesn't confuse Addison mroe she's not at all sure what ever would.

Why Meredith Grey would ever want to hear more from the likes of her after she's cheated on her "McDreamy" and showed up in Seattle and started working at Seattle Grace and dragging Derek through a long divorce and sleeping with one of her friends and getting rejected by both him and Mark and then leaving to try to have a baby she couldn't have.

Why after all of that would Meredith Grey ever want to hear from her ever again? She wasn't exactly always nice to her even, when she was an intern back then.

"Addison are you still there?" Meredith pulls her out of her thought spiral as Addison says to her "Yeah" in a faded gasp as she starts to whimper.

And when Meredith says to her "It's okay" again softly. She hangs up the phone on her because she's going to start ugly crying now, and she's not going to stop. And the last thing on earth Addison wants Meredith Grey to hear from her now is her ugly crying and pained sobs that her mother will be so ashamed that she's shed outside of her room and on the phone with another person, no less.

Meredith thinks that Addison's call must have dropped out because she frowns when the sound just goes blank and she stares down at the screen where it says how long the call had just been.

And she sighs as she dials the familiar number all over again, and she sighs as she realizes that for no logically explainable reason whatsoever that she hardly had to look at her address book to know which of the numbers she should press on next.

*****