𝙄𝙄.
AND WHAT OF MY WRATH?

──────

NEW YORK, 1990s

NEW YORK WAS my new start.

It was exciting, strange and alien. It was a creature of large bodies in the form of skyscrapers, large avenue-veins that embodied a bloodstream of traffic and people. It's energy was vibrant, alive and it took my breath away from the first glance.

It was my chance to shed my small-town skin, to try and widen my horizons. It was my chance to enrol in a college I loved, study for a surgical placement and kick start my career-- it was the spark to my fuse.

Addison took me straight from the airport, dragging me into the back of a taxi cab, all while going on and on about how excited she was that I was moving to the Big Apple. Between her ecstatic smile and the taxi driver begrudgingly shoving my plethora of suitcases into his trunk, I managed to catch my breath from the flight (I'd always hated flying, didn't settle well with my stomach).

The city was busy but about as busy as I'd expected. My sister, Addison, had taken it upon herself to tell me exactly what to expect: large skyscrapers, packed streets, scalding summers and cruel winters. But in the first hour of being in New York, New York, I saw a city that was my new home.

"I'm so happy that you're going to be staying with me," Outside of Addison's apartment block, I hauled my luggage across the baked curb. I watched as Addison paid the taxi driver and turned to me with a bright twinkle in her eye. "It's going to be like the old days... I've missed you so much!--"

I was the third Montgomery child to descend on the city, it appeared that outgrowing our small Connecticut hometown was part of our inherited genes. My brother, Archer lived on the other side of Manhattan and was in the process of setting up a private clinic, one that I would be volunteering at for work experience and helping him organise. He was unable to meet me off of my flight but greeted me later in the evening, once all of my belongings were shoved to the back of Addie's guest room and the first bottle of wine had been opened.

It was then, as we all bonded over the takeout Chinese food and the overly-expensive (both of my siblings had insufferably expensive tastes) alcohol, that the doorbell rang and Addison turned to me, slightly flustered.

"Oh god! I almost forgot..." Addison jumped to her feet, visibly fretting as she ran a hand through her hair. "Beth- there's someone I want you to meet..."

Over her shoulder, Archer rolled his eyes, finishing his glass as I barely touched mine, cradling it in my fingers. Abruptly, Addison grabbed my hand, hauling me to my feet and dragging me towards the door. Quickly, I threw a glance over my shoulder, back towards my brother, who was smirking at my miffed expression. Addison ground to a halt beside the door, checking her hair in the mirror and turned to me with a grin; all before throwing open the door...

A man was stood there, caught slightly off-guard by the sudden presentation.

"Hi."

"Hi."

From the look on Addison's face, I could tell that she was deeply in love with the poor guy.

"Beth, this is Derek." Her voice conveyed her excitement as if she'd been looking forward to this introduction. Her smile was so vibrant, so wide that I almost recoiled, suspended in disbelief that someone could be so whipped so quickly. "He's my boyfriend."

I'd known a guy called Derek in high school, but he'd been a sleazy jock that had beaten my freshmen kinda-boyfriend-at-the-time up behind the bleachers.

Derek Shepherd wasn't that kind of Derek. He held out a hand and smiled genuinely, as if he, too had been looking forward to this moment. A split second of a lip bite and a hand flurrying through his hair betrayed his anxiousness-- it became clear that his first impression on me meant a lot to him. My opinion meant a lot.

I glanced back at Archer before I spoke. My older brother looked vaguely bored.

"Hi, it's nice to meet you."

From that moment onwards as he smiled brightly with genuine relief, I knew that Derek would be a brilliant friend.

"You must be Beth... I've heard a lot about you. Welcome to New York."

***

SEATTLE, 2009

──── Fight or flight.

Every doctor knows about the fight or flight system, the split-second response of the body that powers it either towards or away from chaos. It's the response that kick starts the adrenalin, increasing the heartbeat and raising the stress on your organs-- and it was the exact response that left me stood in a public restroom just a few doors down from Archer's hospital room.

Fight or flight.

My body was urging me to flee; my pupils were dilated, breathing elevated and a light sheen dusted my features. I'd excused myself from Archer's room as soon as Sam had eventually appeared, making sure that Archer wasn't left alone. I'd then placed myself at the back of the restroom, taking a few moments to collect myself.

I hadn't been so on edge like this in four years, the last time I'd wanted so badly to run had been in the middle of my apartment in Manhattan. I'd multi-tasked then, stoically ordering a one-way to flight to Quebec while also throwing everything that I could into a small suitcase. My flight response had been so strong, so impulsive that I'd left the country and thrown myself into a spiral of change-- but that had been alongside a decision to do the best for myself, for my mental health... basically my whole life.

I'd changed my phone number, my lifestyle...

Everything from the way I dressed and the way I spoke and treated other people.

Fight or flight.

I sighed, rolling my shoulders back, attempting to ease out the muscles that were stiff and highly tense across my back. I felt like I was carrying weight, but I supposed in a way I was. Reality had struck me, just as my guard was down. I'd prepared to come face-to-face with Addison, I'd prepared myself for that years ago while in therapy.

The second person, on the other hand, was a good hundred sessions out of the question.

So that led me back to my current situation. There was no doubt that Seattle had an underlying feeling to it, a chaos that was yet to come. This was my personal chaos. Bad blood had been left unfinished. Conversations had gone untouched. There were things that I'd done and he'd done that I didn't want to face. Things he didn't know about. Things I probably didn't know about-- things that I never intended on facing.

Those were my reasons to flee. I was good at flight. I'd done it before. It was almost second nature now, to avoid things and just buy a plane ticket (even though flying was, as previously established, my idea of hell). I'd mastered the art of running and leaving things to burn.

But what changed things, however, was the reasons I had to fight, to stay: Archer. Derek. People I hadn't seen for years, just because Addison and Mark had decided to throw chaos to the wind and sleep with each other-- destroying everything in the process.

Not to mention the burn at the back of my head, the flaring of a temper that had been building under pressure for all of these years.

It sounded dramatic, but my whole brain was in turmoil. My conscious grappled with itself, bickering with that system that urged me to turn and leave without another thought. I bit down on my lip and stared at myself in the restroom mirror, watching as my flushed cheeks hollowed with a short breath.

I hated that after all this time, they had the ability to make me want to scream. I was here for Archer, I'd conquered anxieties and adversity to get here for him. How dare he make me feel as though I had to leave, that I had to leave when my brother could possibly die.

Suddenly, I felt angry again. Suddenly, I felt territorial.

Why the fuck do I have to be the one who suffers?

I had a selfish streak. I did things that I would later regret too often for comfort. But sometimes my selfishness worked out alright in the end.

This was one of those times.

For, standing in the restroom, my white fists clenching the sink and my body rigid with pure spite, I vowed to stay in Seattle, no matter how ugly things got.

***

──── Sam was standing outside of Archer's room when I arrived.

His eyes instantly latched onto me as I approached; he outstretched a hand, offering a warm cup of coffee, of which I accepted instantly. I looked over at him as I hugged it to my body, the heat fuelling a steady fire that was burning in my chest cavity, right where my heart lay.

Fleetingly, I glanced over his shoulder, realising that Archer was long gone. His bed was absent and he seemed to have been unplugged from all of his medical machines-- I looked to Sam, my mouth opening to ask the most obvious question, but he beat me to it.

"Derek sent a few of the transport staff to send Archer up for a scan."

His explanation caused me to let out a deep breath, looking away, momentarily distracted as I thought about my brother's diagnosis. A normal tumour was something that I could have handled- not well, as it was still a terrible thing to be faced with, but it was fathomable.

But tumours filled with worms? That was a little harder to fully internalize. Only Archie would eat dodgy fruit and get worms in his brain. That was for sure.

"Now, when I disappeared earlier, I might have applied for clearance..."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sam raise his hand, holding what looked like a bright identity badge. I tilted my head to the side and quirked an eyebrow. He smirked at me, looking far too happy for himself.

"Now, do you fancy going to pay our old pal a visit?"

I smiled.

The last time I'd had any contact with Derek Shepherd, it'd been over the phone on the night that I'd fled New York. His voice had been thick, he'd been overcome by emotion and had been fleeing, just like I had been. But now, I spied him stood in a room of screens, stood before a glass window, staring out at his patient as the MRI scanner whirred loudly.

He looked tired as if his day had been particularly grilling. There was a lack of light in the way that he habitually glanced down at the screens to check for the brain scan. Ever so often, he'd drag a hand through his hair, toying with his rather iconic dark locks in a nervous, unsettled manner.

It was his nervous tick, I'd grown to know it well; it was the same sort of tense discomfort that I'd seen when I'd helped him propose to Addison and then he'd be faced with a difficult case with an unclear outcome.

It made my heart clench.

I could hear the muffled pulsating sound of the machinery as I followed Sam's lead; he'd flashed his badge at every suspecting eye and smooth-talked his way into getting me this far without any second glances, so I figured that it was a good call to follow along. Sam entered first, a grin appearing across his face.

"Your wife is in the hospital chapel..."

Sam's words caused Derek to look over so quickly that I was sure the sorry bastard would get whiplash. Suddenly, the stormy expression peeled away and the two old mates were smiling at each other, clapping a hand on each other's backs as they embraced in the odd male way guys tended to greet each other.

"She's praying."

I let out a snort, appearing out behind Sam.

Derek's grin grew bigger.

"Addison doesn't pray- we only go to church on Christmas."

We'd never been good, church-going children. I, for sure, was no image of purity. No matter how hard my parents had tried. Although I was pretty bad, I was pretty sure that Addison was a little worse... after all, cheating on your husband with your sister's boyfriend was one hell of a trick shot in the beer pong game of hell.

I found solitude about that during therapy, the fact that my sister had fucked up a whole lot than I had; sure, I'd had to deal with a lot of shit, but she'd fucked up not only her life but Derek's as well. She was closer to hell than I was, and that was what had helped me sleep easier.

"And she's not my wife," Derek's interjection caused me to give him a crooked smile.

He passed Sam, embracing me into a brotherly hug that reminded me of the years I'd spent with him and his sisters.

He patted my shoulder, stepped back and looked between the two of us, his hands on his hips. Derek looked suave in his surgeon's gear, between the lab coat and the little stitched-in identity badge that proclaimed how he was better than all of us.

But for a split second, he also looked as though he was out of his death; for a split second he glanced over his shoulder towards the MRI scanner- towards Archer, I realised that rapidly- and was reminded on the severity of why we were here. He reminded me of me when I was little when I'd dress up as a doctor for Halloween and swamp around in a pair of scrubs with a CD taped to my forehead and a rubber tube around my neck.

"How are you guys? It's been far too long."

"It has," Sam agreed, nodding his head with a small smile. As always, Sam Bennett appeared to be the ray of sunshine in the room. He'd always been so positive that often I'd relied on him to keep me going. "But hey, you know, between the midlife crisis and the clinic-"

"Ah yes," Derek managed a smirk. "Dr. Feelgood; I read your book, by the way. I did drop you an email but you were probably far too busy to respond-- I bet you bought a whole car and everything-"

"I got your email." Sam rolled his eyes; I watched the two of them dryly, choosing to sit down on one of the technician's chair. "My assistant did give you a reply-"

"Yeah, the automated 'thanks for your correspondence.'"

One of the technicians lingered in the corner of the room, busy with some miscellaneous task on the computer, probably over-watching my brother's vitals at the same time. I leant backwards, wobbling slightly as I craned my neck, hoping to catch a glimpse of what the technician was reading. It'd been a long time since I'd read medical notes but I was happy to give it a go.

"What can I say, Dr Feelgood has bills to pay." I nearly collapsed backwards on the chair, the legs beneath me almost giving way, so I decided to stop. Meanwhile, Sam just shrugged. "But yeah, between you and me, I might've got an earring, but it closed up after one day."

Sam managed to steady me, causing Derek to roll his eyes at not only Sam's response but also the slightly miffed expression on my face. Unlike Derek, I was caught off-guard by Sam's confession.

"Are you serious?" Sam's smile turned sheepish and I gaped slightly, exchanging a look with Derek. The dreamy surgeon just chuckled dryly, and even the technician in the corner seemed to smile amusedly as I expressed my disbelief. Entertained, I crossed my arms over my chest, eyebrows almost disappearing into my hairline. "That would have been a look."

Sam and Addie had been the sensible ones. I couldn't envision Sam pierced or even tatted. He was a bumbling, middle-aged psychiatrist that used the safety buckle over the chest when he wore rucksacks. But then again, I guessed that people changed. After all, I hadn't envisioned Addison fucking my ex-boyfriend, but carpe diem I guess.

"What about you, kid?" Derek turned his gaze onto me and I smirked, briefly looking over my cuticles.

"I'm pretty good now." I was pretty good. "I'm not old enough for a mid-life crisis like some people-" Sam kicked the back of my chair hoarsely- "but, I did get a tattoo a few years about. Also, not gonna lie, I can tick the box for a sudden life change. Reliving my year of teenage-rebellion-fueled travelling was probably the closest thing I'm ever going to get to Sam's bid to become the next George Michael."

Kick.

"That's good." Derek nodded, sitting in the seat beside me and pulling the computer's keyboard towards him. But then he paused. "Well, not the tattoo part, god knows what Addison and Archer will say-"

"I don't really care what Addison thinks," I muttered in a rather sharp tone; Sam glanced over at me, his face drawn into a sad grimace. Derek barely faltered at my words, he just continued to press buttons on the computer and hummed lightly. "And Archer will never find out."

"Really?"

"Yep."

Derek knew a lot of things about me, a lot of things that Archer didn't know, even. If it wasn't for our lack of communication over the last four years, he probably would know all of my dark secrets. But now, I had Charlie, who was far more educated in the "Life Story of Elizabeth Montgomery" than Derek would ever have the misfortune to be.

I looked over at him and gave him the look, the same look that I'd given him back in New York when I'd want this information locked tight at the back of his head, far away from the prying gaze of Archer or Addison. He sighed, but a clear smile crept over his lips.

For a moment, it felt like I'd never left.

But then curt silence turned weird. An awkwardness that I hadn't truly felt since coming to Seattle began. In the few moments in which my eyes strayed through the window, towards the outline of my older brother lying in the large machine, I felt the impact of the separation.

I felt Sam awkwardly buzzing about in the background, attempting to think of a conversation topic and Derek suffering under the weight of the stress and impending doom of his next surgery.

But most importantly, I felt my cool, collected composure hanging by a thread. Over a pool of sharks. On fire. Surrounded by C4.

"Uh, I met Meredith."

Meredith. Derek's mid-life crisis. This woman, the same woman who Lexie, the intern, had briefly mentioned, was now Sam's idea of a conversation topic. It was a name that, under both Sam and I's gazes, made Derek turn noticeably bashful.

The tips of his ears flushed with a red hue and he smiled, his eyes dropping to the path of his fingers across the keys.

"That's good." His reply was almost mechanical, sheepish and distracted. Then, Derek chuckled despite himself, throwing the two of us a glance as if to answer an unspoken question. "She's not my mid-life crisis. She's not a car, or a tattoo-- she's the real thing."

I couldn't help but grin. It was nice to hear.

In a world where my faith in companionship was the equivalent of a rollercoaster ride from hell, it was good to hear that Derek had found someone. I'd never really heard what had happened to Derek and Addison after we'd both left New York; there had always been the assumption that they'd break up, that they'd divorce and call it quits, but that's where my thoughts had ended. Derek was a very driven guy but he was also extremely sensitive, almost self-destructively so. That was something we had in common.

He'd either follow my lead and be outrageously unprofessional and just sleep with a stranger in the middle of a bar (in my defence, I was pretty shit-faced) or he'd need time to heal, build up his ability to trust.

There was something about the way he smiled to himself, as if dazed and relieved, that made me think Derek Shepherd had truly lost his mind and done the latter.

"I'm happy for you, man- Happy for you." Sam enthused, clapping him on the shoulder; I sensed an edge to his voice that I must have been oblivious to.

There was something briefly awkward between them, the return of the gawky atmosphere that made me think I wasn't the only one who had completely cut off correspondence to my old life.

Derek's smile was hesitant and he looked away far too soon. Sam's distant bitterness had been there all along, his words were vaguely disingenuous. Sam hadn't answered his email? Derek was getting antsy? Sounded a whole lot like drama.

Suddenly, everyone was sad.

"I should have called."

Sam sighed, shaking his head quickly as if he was finally realising that his grudge was misplaced. "No-"

"-Stayed in touch." Derek continued, the corners of his mouth dipping down. As if on a timer, his hand ran through his tousled locks (my eye trained across it briefly wondering whether he was violating a thousand different hospital hygiene protocols with every swipe) and he sighed sadly. "It's my fault."

"It's not your fault," I muttered blandly.

Dubiously, Sam glanced in my direction, watching as I swallowed uncomfortably; it was as if my throat had suddenly been swapped with Death Valley. It was scratchy, dry, and I fought to comfort my friend's sadness.

"I did the exact same."

We'd both abandoned everything. We'd both turned our backs on Sam, on Naomi. We'd both been surprised when Archer appeared, fatally ill. We'd both taken our flight or fight response into our hands and acted selfishly.

Anxiously, I picked at my nails. I dropped my gaze away from Sam as the psychiatrist slowly got over his abandonment. Eventually, after a long pause that felt stifling, Sam shrugged.

"People move," He sounded oddly like a textbook response during a psychiatric session. I chanced a look over at him and he was smiling graciously, patching old wounds. "They change... We all did."

"Yeah," I agreed rather stoically, my attention wandering back towards Archer. "I mean, I would've never guessed that Sam would get his ear pierced but here we are..."

I could see the computers beginning to render the images; the technician replaced Derek in his seat and now the neurosurgeon was pacing in a short manner, wringing his hands anxiously as I attempted to lighten the mood.

Sam let out an aggravated sigh, leaning against the back of my chair as I folded one leg over the other. But Derek didn't chuckle, instead, he approached the technician talking to them in a hushed tone as Archer's brain rendered on the screen, a ghostly contrast against the dark background.

"You know what- I would usually be above this but if this gets back to Naomi, I'll never hear the end of it..." I raised an eyebrow, swallowing my anxiety as Sam glowered down at me jokingly. "If you think you have dirt on me-- don't you remember that time in Central Park with the horse-"

"Okay... Bennett." I chuckled, impressed with his audacity. "You've got me there. My lips are sealed."

But my chuckle caught at the back of my throat; I looked back over at Derek as he patted the shoulder of the technician, asking for a moment of privacy. I almost got to my feet, expecting to be dismissed alongside Sam and replaced with some leading surgical masterminds, but Derek, instead, sat down, turning towards the two of us.

Sam cleared his throat. "Addison's praying."

"She's expecting a miracle." My ex-brother-in-law muttered sadly, turning back to face the scan of Archie's brain as it was slowly processed by the various machines scattered around the room.

Then suddenly, an image appeared on the screen, causing Derek to groan lightly. I leant back heavily on the chair, watching as Derek shook his head slowly.

"But I can't deliver one."

I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples.

I knew it. Archie was going to die.

Derek lifted a finger, pointing to the small irritated spots within Archie's scan. I decided to look as though I understood everything he was saying, my interest peaking as I stared inside my brother's head. It was an odd thought to think that this was the core of Archer Montgomery, that this was what made him.

"I've seen patients with one cyst in the ventricle, maybe two..." From the look on his face, I could tell that Archie was a special case. I'd never been a solid maths student, but I could definitely count more than one or two spots on the scan. One, two, three, four, five—"He has eight."

By the way, Sam took in a short, panicked breath as he leant over beside me, I knew that that was far from good news.

"There is no way that I can get a scope in there without rupturing one." Derek looked full of guilt and sadness, his eyes meeting mine just as the tears threatened to leak. I blinked rapidly, directing my attention away from my brother's impending doom. "There's just too many-"

"Maybe you're just too close to it?" Sam suggested, trying to find an alternate perspective on the whole ordeal. He squinted his eyes at the scan as if he was expecting there to be a sudden miraculous cure to Archie's conundrum. "What if there was just one? Explain to me how you would just remove one cyst."

But I didn't hear Derek's explanation.

I was all too busy choosing the flowers for Archie's grave in my head.

***

──── Five steps into the centre of Seattle Grace Hospital and I was surrounded by a hectic crowd of doctors.

The hospital was thriving, with civilians mingled with the burn of light blue scrubs. It was like I was in the middle of a stormy sea, with my arms drawn tight against my chest as the waves bundled around me, driving my incessantly crazy. I let out a deep breath, finding myself suddenly overwhelmed by it all.

I hadn't minded the small hospitals where I'd been dealing with the rehabilitation of trauma victims, and helping those who had been affected by the earthquakes and the disasters and the fear, to rebuild their lives. But I really didn't like hospitals where my brother was one of their patients.

I didn't like the hospital where my brother was going to die.

"Excuse me- are you okay?"

I blinked, suddenly being dragged out my subconscious. I blinked to find a woman stooped in front of me, her eyes filled with concern. She was pretty, but that didn't surprise me. It seemed as though every doctor in this hospital was picture perfect.

"Um- yeah- I-I-" I swallowed thickly, noticing that I was stranded in the middle of the surgical floor, a floor that was now almost deserted. It seemed that the storm had come and gone and now it was silent and eerie. "I was going to get another coffee-"

"The canteen's down the hall," The doctor replied earnestly, her eyes scanning the way I nodded quickly. She could tell that I was uncomfortable- of course, I was uncomfortable, my brother was going to die. "I can take you there if you want..."

"Thanks- but I think I'll be able to find it."

"Do you have anyone with you?"

The blonde doctor's concern was almost irritating. She had that charismatic smile that could probably win a guy over in an instant, one that made girls like me want to rip her pretty teeth out of her head. As I opened my mouth to speak, a voice sounded out behind me, causing shivers to go down my spine.

"Beth?"

I froze.

Another thing with girls like me, it wasn't often that things went our way.

For example, I didn't want to catch that plane; then that plane had tripled into three plane flights and that reason for me to get onto said planes was because of a certain brother on his deathbed. I had also wanted to become a surgeon, but that had become too much and I'd gone for Psych instead, mostly because I'd been kicked out of the surgical programme I'd worked my whole life for.

Additionally, I'd wanted to spend my whole life with Mark Sloan, but then he'd gone and gotten in bed with my sister.

My sister. Addison.

I didn't turn around, despite the fact that Addison had repeated my name. It was in a mixture of surprise, horror and what I refused to admit was a relief. She sounded exhausted, yet I couldn't bring myself to face her.

God, I wasn't sure whether I could trust myself to speak face to face with her.

I wasn't sure whether I had the self-restraint not to pull her pretty little teeth out of her pretty little head.

The doctor frowned, her porcelain forehead wrinkling far more than I bet it would in old age. Her blue eyes bounced from over my shoulder to my gritted teeth. Back and forth, back and forth. But by the fifth time she'd played eye-tennis, I was sure that it'd clicked.

So with a very forced smile and a long sigh, I turned around and looked Addison Montgomery right in the eye.

"Hey Addie, fancy seeing you here."