chapter forty five

piece of my heart.season four, episode thirteen.

Addison, who was back in town from Los Angeles for a case, waved at him as she moved to stand over his shoulder.

"Just coming in to check on my patient's skin flap," she said, checking his progress.

"Amazing, right?" he boasted, pointing to what he was working on. "I pulled a couple of stem cells from the baby in utero, six weeks later, I have grown skin. Like ."

"This place is exactly the same," Addison laughed. "are exactly the same."

At that moment, Cassie walked in with a grin on her face. Things between her and Mark had become a bit less awkward over the past few days, though the tension was thicker than ever.

"Hey Mark, I grabbed you some—" Cassie cut herself off when she saw who was standing in the room. "—coffee."

Addison shuffled her feet. "Hey."

Slowly, Cassie stepped right past her, setting the coffee down on the desk next to Mark. He raised a brow, confused as ever. "Cass, what's going o—"

"Hey?" Cassie whipped around and raised her voice at the redhead, who was startled by her outburst. "You move to LA without so much as a goodbye, and you have the to say ?"

Addison looked to Mark for help, who was trying to hold back an amused smile. "Sorry?"

"You leave for after I finally got over everything that had happened in the past, after you practically me to forgive you, without saying goodbye, and you say ?"

Cassie had her arms crossed over her chest as she stared down the attending.

Addison, who had expected this to happen, took a deep breath, and moved to grab something out of a small cardboard box she'd brought with her.

Mark raised a brow in curiosity, before freezing in his place in shock once he saw what it was.

Addison smiled, reaching into the box and pulling out a tiny orange kitten, no bigger than the size of a cup.

Cassie's eyes widened so much that they looked like they would pop out of her head at any given moment.

"I-Is that for me?" she asked cautiously.

"It is," Addison nodded, holding it out to her.

Immediately, Cassie jumped towards them and took the small cat into her arms, who instantly began to purr at the contact.

"You got me a kitten!"

"?!"

"I got you a kitten," Addison laughed. "He was supposed to be adopted by a patient of mine, but they sadly didn't make it off the table. I couldn't just let the little guy go to the pound, you know?"

Cassie nuzzled it close to her chest, pressing kisses on it's forehead with a huge smile.

Mark looked at Addison incredulously, ignoring the adorable display in front of him. "You brought a cat into a ?!"

"Shh," Cassie scolded, holding a hand over the kitten's ears to shield him. "You'll scare him!"

Shaking his head in mock disappointment, he sighed heavily as a grin tugged at the corner of his lips. Mark honestly didn't think it was possible for Cassie to get any cuter, but alas, he was wrong.

"Adorable as he is, you'll have to take him home," Addison conceded. "Or at least put him in your locker until the end of the day."

Cassie held the kitten in the air, right above her face. "What do you think, little sir?" she asked in a high pitched voice. "Do you want to hang out in the locker room while mommy works? Hm? You wanna go in the locker room with a bed made of sweatshirts and lots of snackies? Yeah?"

"Make it stop," Mark deadpanned, looking at Addison. "Make it stop ."

The woman in question playfully rolled her eyes, turning back to a giddy Cassie. "So, am I forgiven?"

"I don't even remember why I was mad," she waved her off distractedly, tapping the kitten on the nose, earning herself a . "Also, off topic, but will you marry me?"

Addison laughed. "Like I said, this place is exactly the same."

☆

After running to the local store to get some cat food and a proper cage to put her unnamed kitten in for the day, Cassie watched from behind her chart as a nurse named Isabella shamelessly flirted with Mark. Of course, it's not as if it were uncommon for women to throw themselves at him; that wasn't the problem.

The problem, was that it looked like he was flirting

"Who are we glaring at?"

Cassie nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard George's voice from behind her. "Dude! Warn me the next time you're going to speak!"

"Sorry," he shrugged. "But who are you—" he followed her eyeline to Mark and Isabella, who were laughing way too hard to be normal at seven in the morning.

"Nothing," she said suspiciously, causing him to send her a look of disbelief.

"Why would you be... unless..."

After a few seconds, George let out a gasp.

Cassie physically cringed. "Don't—"