Author's Notes: So I started posting this years ago, and it took me over 12 month to finish it, and hell, probably no one's reading it, but I'm kind of still proud of it. I wrote it when I was sixteen, so you'll have to forgive me that. An AU version of Season Three.
Mark/Addison kind of, but mostly Mark-centric dealing with Mark/Addison/Derek and all combinations thereof. An attempt to give Mark layers. Like an onion. Or an ogre. Plus my favourite kind of Addison to start: the drunk kind. SMIRK.
Chapter One: This Is How It Works.
You're not exactly trying to interrupt their little 'moment'. You roll your eyes a little and correct yourself: you didn't exactly have to try. They were sitting in the middle of the room at the bar for crying out loud. Everyone who was looking could see. And besides, you wanted a drink. Wanted? Needed, you neededa drink.
Especially after the little spectacle Addison appears to be trying to make of herself.
So you palmed your glass and stood behind them, not watching so much as looking past their faces, over Alex Karev's shoulder and past Addison's head and staring, vaguely at the wall.
She pulls back first, a breathless giggle escaping her lips and if you didn't already know, it now seems certain that she's drunk.
You let your glass slam against the bar top a little and sit down beside Alex Karev giving them no other indication of your presence. It has the desired effect though: Addison looks up and a hand flies to her mouth, Karev turns around and scowls.
"She's drunk," you inform him, "Not unable to walk but definitely unable to maintain a straight course from A to B."
"Leave her alone," he glares at you.
"I'm telling you," you shrug and stare at the bottom of your glass, "She's drunk."
"Mark," she has slumped against the bar top, her head is resting on her hand, her elbow propped against the polished wood. She sounds bitter, despondent, tired. You wait for her to say more but that's all it is, just your name and a pout.
"Hey Addison," you nod at her and trace the rim of your glass absently.
"Go away," she tells you, making a sweeping gesture with one hand and grabbing onto the bar, eyes wide with alarm as she tries to steady herself, "Go back to New York. Go home."
You cough a little, due to the stupid cold, and take a sip of scotch, eyeing Karev pointedly, "She's drunk."
"I think," he says in a low angry voice and you want to laugh, because it feels like the equivalent of a terrier growling at a German Shepherd, "That of the two of us, I am more likely to look after her best interests than you are."
You do laugh at that, mirthlessly, "Sure. Whereas I think that you and I both know that you're going to take advantage of her and that she won't stop you."
"And you won't?" he narrows his eyes at you.
You shrug, "She's used to waking up beside me and regretting it."
It's not meant to sound as bitter as it does.
"You're an ass," he snaps, "You treat her like shit."
"Don't fool yourself," you sigh, "She's not a saint."
The 'she' in question is currently making a face as she swallows what remains of her drink in two gulps and thoroughly disinterested in the conversation.
"That doesn't give you an excuse to be a jerk," he hisses.
"Look kid," you really don't feel like having this conversation, "Talk to me in ten years. Until then, just trust me when I tell you that you don't want to be that guy."
He looks at you, curiously now.
"What?" you almost laugh at him again, he's so fucking young that it hurts, "You think that she lovesyou? You think that she has any feelings for you at all? You're there Alex," you suddenly realise you need to be drinking more and talking less, or at least drinking more before you talk about this; it's too fucking painful otherwise, "You're just there. And she'll pretend it's what she wants, oh, she'll do a fucking wonderful job of it too except then there'll be the times when you can tell she's not really there. She'll cry sometimes, she'll lie awake and cry silently for hours. Nothing you say will matter. She'll be lost somewhere inside herself. She'll tell you it's what she wants but do her best to push you away. She'll lie," you shrug, more drink, "She lies. You don't want to be the idiot who believes her."
"How do you know it won't be different?" he challenges you.
You shrug, "You think that you'll sleep with her and she'll want to pretend it never happened or you think that you wouldn't cheat on her. On both counts no, she's not that kind of girl. It will matter to her. She'll pretend she likes you, that she was interested, that she knew what she was doing. She's old-fashioned. If she was sober you'd be lucky to get her to kiss you on the first date. And if you think that after weeks, months of her shit you won't be coming here and drinking until you don't remember the girl's name you're even dumber than I thought you were."
"Why the fuck do you hate me so much?"
And suddenly it's not about her at all and you don't want to talk about this. You wouldn't be talking to Alex Karev at all if it wasn't about her.
"Because," you say dismissively, "You're a suck up."
He immediately takes offence, "You know what? Fuck you. All I wanted was a chance to learn from you. Miserable son of a fucking bitch that you are."
"I liked you better when you were sucking up," you mutter dryly, "This has nothing to do with you. I don't give a fuck about what you do really. But you so much as touch her," you warn, "And I will hit you so fast and so hard that you won't even know what happened until you're having your jaw screwed back into place."
"What'cha boys whispering about over here?" Addison smiles at you both lazily and slightly lopsidedly, teetering on the three-inch stilettos and standing between you. When she falls forward against the bar top and smiles at Joe you immediately shuffle right and push a stool behind her before she falls over.
"Drunk," Karev mumbles.
You shoot him a look and nod.
"Well?" she sings, reaching out with her hands and resting them on your thigh and Karev's. Your hand immediately closes over hers. She looks up in surprise and the giggles end abruptly. You run your thumb over the side of her hand and squeeze a little. She grips yours tighter and turns back to face Karev with a huge smile on her face. You can tell from the tone of her voice that it doesn't quite meet her eyes.
She tosses her hair over her shoulder and leans closer to Karev, her elbow propping up her face. She's laughing at something he's saying but it's her hollow drunk laugh, the one you've seen her use on men before. It's been fifteen years but it hasn't changed much.
Politely, you turn back to your drink, resting half full on the bar top and pointedly look the other way. She has dragged your hand from your thigh to hers and is running it along the inside of her leg along the seam of the silk trousers. You swallow the amber liquid and try to concentrate on the burn rather than the sloppy kissing noises and low laughter from her. Finally, she sits upright and promptly falls sideways against you, her head resting on your shoulder.
"Mark," she says, smiling but still sad. She tucks your hand beneath her thigh and her fingers circle your wrist, "Oh Mark."
"Addison," you tell her, "You're drunk."
"Mmm," she considers this momentarily, and sounds almost sleepy, "I suppose I am."
"And people are going to talk," you say a little more pointedly.
"Bout what?" she is nuzzling against your arm, clearly intent on napping for a short while before resuming her conquest of Alex Karev, who is nursing his third beer and eyeing you both, alternately staring at the skin exposed by the top button of her shirt which has somehow come undone in all of this and glaring at you.
You push her sideways a little and bend down to whisper in her ear, "Addison, it looks like you're putting the moves on both of us. At the same time."
She smirks and eyes you, purring, "What if I am?"
You shake your head and rest your chin against her shoulder, "Do you want to be kissing this kid? Or is it just the alcohol?"
"Mmm," her eyes are closed again and she rests her head against yours, "Are you jealous that I'm kissing him?"
"I just want to know what you want," you say, neutrally, because your own feelings on the matter are somewhat confusing to explain. For the moment your primary concern is looking out for her. It's a habit formed after years of experience. In med-school she instantly transformed from the straight-arrow studious daddy's girl into the life of the party after what seemed to you to be one or two drinks. And Derek was always under the table by eight o'clock so you've developed an instinctive need to protect her when she's drinking.
She smiles, a genuine lazy smile and says, "Do you remember when we first met?"
You pull backwards and tug at her hand, "Addison, do you want to go home?"
"Shh," she waves you off and leans backwards, nudging Karev in the side, "I'm telling a story."
The first thought that comes to mind is: 'oh, here we go'.
"The first time that I met Mark," she giggles and you watch Karev looking more and more thoughtful, even when her fingers scrape against his jeans, "I was… drinking," she snickers to herself, "A little. And staring, you remember?" she turns to you so you nod a little, "I was staring at Derek and he came over and said hello," she reaches out with her unengaged hand and grabs your drink, finishing it neatly before wiping her hand with the back of her mouth and causing her lipstick to trail across her cheek, "And rattled off my entire schedule so I thought he was stalking me. But then he introduced himself as Derek's best friend and I told him," she raises your entwined hands to point at you but goes a little too far, jabbing you in the nose, "I told him that Derek had to ask me out himself, because we weren't in grade school any more. You remember?"
"Yeah," you offer, "I remember."
"And ever since," she confesses, "I have wondered why the hell he was talking to me instead of hitting on some other girl. I always wondered why," she sighs and falls against Karev this time. His arm is halfway around her hips when he hesitates and wraps it around her shoulder instead, purely to steady her.
You smile a little in satisfaction.
"Why," she blinks at you, "There were always other girls."
She's stopped making sense; the sentence is dislodged and incomplete. You shake your head at her, in an exasperated, disapproving, sad kind of way, and look at your empty glass.
"Anyway," she promptly turns her head but it's just a flash of red in your peripheral vision, "He's always funny when I'm drunk. But you're not," she's cooing to Karev now and you feel her fingers dig into your hand. She wants you to look and you're determined not to, "You're not being funny with me at all."
"Would you like me to be funny with you?" Karev responds, in a voice that's familiar to you because you've used it before.
"Oh," her hand makes contact with his shoulder and she laughs lightly, "I think so."
"Then why are you sitting next to him?"
It is, you admit, a very good question – also a complex one, a can of worms maybe – but a good one just the same.
"Because," she lowers her voice to a loud whisper and you're probably not meant to hear her answer, "He's my Mark."
In retrospect, given her state of inebriation, it was always going to be a disappointing admission.
"Because I'm drunk," she continues in hushed tones, jabbing a finger into Karev's shirt and smiling all the while, "And because he's my Mark he'll look after me if youtry anything funny Mister," she laughs to herself, "In case I don't notice."
"What counts as funny?"
"Lot's of stuff," she's flirting shameless and you absently wonder how long she'll be able to exert this kind of pressure on your hand before her nails break the skin, "Try it," she smiles, "And I'll tell you if it counts."
"I'm not allowed to touch you," Karev mutters, under his breath, but you catch it because you're not looking at them and listening intently.
"Oooh why?" she pulls away from you and drags your hand between her legs again.
"Because," Alex shrugs, "Your boyfriend threatened to beat me up if I did."
"He's not my boyfriend," she pouts, sexily, "He's my… Mark. He's just Mark."
And, you think, that was always it. You were 'just Mark' as though the 'just' made everything and anything you did with her ok. It downplayed the importance of anything you felt for her, of anything you wanted from her. It justified whatever she demanded of you and left you with no room to have human emotions. You were 'just Mark' which was a way of saying 'arrogant womaniser extraordinaire' and 'immature asshole' in two syllables, a way of making sure you never felt or said anything of importance, making light of your actions because they could never be considered serious. You were 'just Mark' which was a way of saying 'Derek's best friend' in a shorter sentence, taking the familiarity and friendship that you shared with herand trivialising it, hiding it by making it an extension of your friendship with Derek.
You were 'just Mark'.
That she slept with you once, when you were all 21-years-old in your first semester of med school? Didn't matter, because you were 'just Mark'.
That she kissed you once, a year later, when she was dating Derek? Also highly irrelevant, because you were 'just Mark'.
That for eleven years she let her hands linger against yours if you reached for the same thing at the same time, or her fingers curl around your arm whenever you really talked to her didn't matter. That for eleven years you tucked her hair behind her ears and she half-smiled, half-sighed every time you did didn't matter. That for eleven years you loved her and for eleven years she would sigh over the prospect of 'what if?' was completely beside the point because you were, are, always will, just be Mark.
According to Addison, despite not containing a single adjective, those two words sum you up perfectly. It's the best excuse, the most inadequate description and the most infuriating phrase that has ever been associated with you.
You send a fake smile in Joe's direction though and ask him for another drink. You need one. She'll probably pick up the poor kid and want you to guard the door and hell, you are not going to do that sober.
You're the safety net in all of this; you can tell she has no idea what's she's doing by the tight grip she has on your hand and you know that's she's clinging to it because no matter what else has happened, you'll always be the one that dragged her up four flights of stairs to her dorm room before she passed out in college. You'll always be the one that mopped up the bathroom floor when she and Derek thought it would be neat to polish off two bottles of vodka and you'll always be the one that she called when she was drunk, the one that it didn't matter with; if she slept with you or called you names or told you her deepest secrets, it didn't matter. You were Mark, a better drinker than both of them put together and perpetually without an intoxicated girlfriend of your own to look after.
So you know she's halfway between happy horny drunk and completely disorientated, paranoid drunk.
And you know that she won't let you leave her, even though the last place you want to be is sitting beside her while she whores her mouth to Alex Karev's tongue. You resist the urge to tell them they should learn to kiss a little quieter, in the interests of etiquette.
Karev, poor bastard, still seems to think he has a chance even though she's rambling in a soft teasing voice between kisses, telling him all sorts of nonsense and taking longer and longer to string the words together every time.
Finally she giggles at Alex and says, "My Mark looks pissed, and not in the good way."
You try not to scowl, but honestly, if your 21-year-old self had known what he was signing up for all those years ago you wouldn't have done Derek the fucking favour. You would have told him to suck it up and talk to her himself. And he never would have had the guts. Privately, you wonder if you would all be better off.
"Are you mad at me?" she blinks up at you from beneath her eyelashes, sounding contrite.
"No," you say it sarcastically but she's probably too far beyond drunk to notice, "No everything's great Addison. Really, best end to a shitty day I've had in ages."
"That's my fault isn't it?" she sighs, "You blame it all on me, you say we would have been happy when realistically it was never going to be like that Mark."
"Addison," you tell her, "The time, place and your blood alcohol concentration seem inappropriate for this conversation."
"No you know what?" she glares and wrenches her hand from yours, folding her arm around her middle defensively, "Screw it. It wasn't just my fault. You can't talk in what ifs and all-or-nothing hypotheticals. This is shit ok? Things right now? Are just shit but it's not a question of whether we would have been happy or unhappy, whether it would have been shit or not, it's a question about just how shit it would have been and whether we're better off. So don't talk in fucking absolutes. It's fucked now and it would have been fucked if I hadn't, so in the end, it's fucked anyway and it doesn't fucking matter."
"Hey," Karev looks alarmed at this outburst, and the cynic in you tells you it's because his hopes of getting laid are becoming but a distant memory, "Hey," he puts his arm around her and rubs at the skin beneath her sleeve as she lets her head rest on her hands and sobs softly.
Then he glares with you, as though you had something, anything to do with it.
Fuck him, you think as you clench your jaw, as if he has any fucking idea what's going on and as if he has any fucking right to an opinion.
"Addison," you begin, trying to ignore the pesky need you always feel in these situations to act like a complete ass and instead, focussing on being the mature, responsible, sober one, "You've had too much to drink…"
"Do you think it was easy?" she cuts you off and spits the words, tears still rolling down her cheeks, "Do you think I liked having the wonderful experience of killing my child? Do you think it's something I'm proudof? God Mark, are you that fucking immature that you can't see that it was the lesser of two evils? And you know what? That doesn't make it hurt less. Are you happy? I'm fucking miserable. Are you happy? Is that what you want?"
"No," you admit quietly and Karev sort of stares at you both as if he's suddenly realised he's involved over his head in something he has no desire to be involved in. It serves him right of course, because you warned him.
"No, I don't want you to be fucking miserable," you continue, standing up and tugging at her elbow, "I want you to get up and let me take you home, because you're drunk and you're screaming personal things not just at me, but at a room full of strangers."
She sniffs and wipes at her cheeks, "That's why you're Mark, you're not meant to let me do that."
"We're not 21-years-old anymore Ad," you observe a little wistfully, "You have a hell of a lot more reason to scream at me and I have a hell of a lot less to say for myself."
"This is just shit," she repeats her earlier words, softer this time, "It fucking sucks."
Karev sort of smiles at her in vague amusement and you wonder if that's where she picked up that particular terminology.
"How'd it all happen?" she whispers, "Yesterday we were young and happy and we were all friends. Derek and I were in love and you are I were screwing around but none of it mattered, not really, because we were so young then, we were going to fucking conquer the world, we were going to be the world's best surgeons, nothing was going to stop us," she laughs, bitterly, "You know what's so fucking ironic about it all? Nothing did, our lives were going to be fucking perfect and nothing stopped that but us."
She turns to the intern and waves a finger in his face, "Listen to me Alex. You're still so young; you haven't made any mistakes, not the big ones anyway. You're still learning how to be an adult, how to be a surgeon, how to be up to your eye balls in debt instead of racking up said debt at med school," she swallows and meets his eyes, "So listen to me when I tell you to fuck things up, make mistakes, because that's how you learn but don't make the really big ones. Don't make the ones that you regret. Don't do and say the kind of things that you can't take back. And do it the hard way. Pick the dangerous girl. Don't settle for plastics if you want neonatal. Don't do neonatal because you think sleeping with me will get you ahead. And for fucks sake, don't fall in love more than once. It's too fucking painful the first time."
"Hey," Karev puts a hand on her arm and bends down to look up at her, "Thanks for the advice."
She laughs a little even though she's still crying, "You're welcome. I don't even know if it made sense, but you're welcome."
"I think we should take you home," he says cautiously, looking up at you for confirmation.
You nod and hand over a wad of notes, thanking Joe.
"Ok?" Karev is still trying to coax her onto her feet so you just hover beside them, knowing he'll need help keeping her upright.
"Yeah," she nods slowly, squashing her nose into her face with her palm, "Ok."
She lets him pull her up and slings an arm around his shoulders, leaning all her weight against him but somehow managing to walk on the heels anyway. You shrug at Karev and tell him he can drive her to the hotel if he wants. From where you're standing, she owes him a few more of those drunk kisses and some light groping for his patience. You watch the intern pulling her across the room and wonder if she was ever a gymnast; her balance on those ridiculous shoes given her inebriation is amazing.
Most things about her are.
You're yet to figure out why she's the only woman you can honestly say has ever amazed you.
You think it's yet another way the universe has decided to prove that it hates you.
At risk of wallowing in these admittedly irrational yet sometimes seemingly justified thoughts, you ask Joe to call you a cab and stifle another dry cough.
Suddenly you realise you have a throbbing headache and that your throat aches. Of course, you think, because your week is all sunshine and rainbows as it is, having a cold just adds to the wonderful experience.
You're waiting for them when Karev drags her into the lobby, soaking wet from the rain and shivering slightly. You don't want to know what took them so long and you don't care to think about the possibilities. It's enough that she's here and she's safe, and that Alex Karev has just said goodnight and walked out, car keys in hand.
She's huddling against your side as you wait for the elevator and you can tell the room is still spinning for her because she twists around every so often, rotating her hips and throwing her arms out to keep herself balanced.
You shrug off your jacket and drape it over her shoulders, taking her right hand in your left and resting your other hand on her hip. She leans backwards against you and sighs a little, "Mark?"
You echo the rise and fall of her shoulders and exhale in defeat, "What?"
"I'm sorry," she murmurs.
You don't have the slightest clue what she's talking about, so you shrug and say, "It's ok."
"No," she shakes her head with closed eyes and you push her forward into the elevator, waiting until she is gripping the sides with her hands and leaning backward against the wall before pressing the button for the twenty second floor.
"No," she repeats, letting her body sink down until she's sitting on the floor, her hands gripping her knees, "I'm sorry about everything."
"It'll be ok," you insist, offering her both hands to help her stand again.
She shakes her head again and yawns, "I think I'll just sit for a while."
"Up," you persevere, "Ours is the next floor."
Sleepily, she grasps for your hands and it's almost like a game: she throws her arms about wildly and you try to catch them. Finally you succeed and pull her upright, helping her down the corridor and stopping in front of her door. She promptly slumps against it and slides to the ground once more.
"Just for a minute," she promises.
"Are you ok?" you ask her suspiciously, because she has that queasy look about her and you wonder if she's going to be sick.
"In a minute," she repeats, raising her hand to her mouth and gagging slightly, "I'm fine, I promise. I just need a second."
"Ok," you concede, leaning against the door yourself until she tugs at your clothing, patting the ground beside her.
"Sorry about the drunk thing too," she mutters wryly, resting her head against your shoulder when you sink to the floor beside her.
"I'm used to the drunk thing," you tease.
"I know," she shrugs and hides her face in your sleeve, "But I still feel bad about making you put up with me after all these years."
"At least I'm not holding the hair out of your face," you hit your head against her door, listening to the hollow thud.
"While I vomit in the kitchen sink," she laughs a little at the memory, "No, I suppose so."
"There's been worse," you muse.
"Funny how the drunken incidents tend to get less memorable as you get older," she sighs, "And the emotional clusterfucks tend to get much worse."
"This drunken incident was pretty memorable," you remind her, in case she's forgotten, "You've probably single-handedly sent the rumour mill into overdrive."
She groans, "Was it really that bad?"
"You yelled at me," you recall, "Loudly."
"You deserved it," she murmurs quietly.
"Maybe I did," you agree.
"But that was unfair of me," she confesses, "Because I should have given you the opportunity to yell back and at least had a proper argument about it. You know, the old-fashioned he-said she-said kind where you blame me for everything and I blame you for everything, things are said in anger that we can't take back, we hate each other for a while and I possibly hurl things across the room at you."
"That's what we did best," you tell her, "We fought well as a couple."
She snorts, "Yeah. Yeah we did. We cared enough to argue."
"We always argued," you close your eyes, "From the minute we met."
"We always cared," she counters.
"Yeah," you nod against the wall.
"It wasn't all your fault," she says, "I know you never stopped sleeping around, I'm not an idiot but it wasn't all your fault. I," she laughs at herself, "I was still married and I made you move into the brownstone even though you hated it for what it represented. And I screwed up my pills and I let you get away with all the other women because I just thought you deserved that at least," she hugs her knees a little tighter, "I ruined everything you had. I didn't think I deserved whatever it was you felt for me. I didn't think I had the right to ask you to change. So it's my fault too."
"We both fucked it up," you sigh again, "It always takes two."
"Three," she corrects, "We all fucked it up. All three of us."
You have nothing to say to that so you help her stand again and fumble in the back pocket of her pants for her keys. You open the door for her and watch her stumble across the room before collapsing on the bed. You have to smile at least a little fondly at that, her ridiculous signature heels hanging over the side and her designer clothes still damp from the rain.
You pull the shoes from her feet and tug the covers out from under her.
She's right of course, you probably wouldn't have been happy even if you were together because neither of you really knows what happiness is. Privately you think you'd be willing to learn, if she wanted.
You push her hair out of the corners of her mouth and roll her sideways, tucking her knee across her body to anchor her and it's a flashback to first aid in high school. You always leave her like this, just in case she decides to choke on her own vomit in her sleep. You've seen it happen, in your years as a doctor, and you're not really worried. Like most things you do, it's not borne from anxiety at the the prospect just the prospect itself.
So you sigh and watch her sleep, her mouth open against the covers making a wet patch on the sheets, and you wonder how the fuck you all got here. Life has always happened around you, not to you. When you were 21 you had visions, dreams, plans. You'd never been in love and considered the idea trite but you weren't above being proven wrong. Most of what you hoped to achieve in life related to surgery, but ten years later when you opened your own practise on Park Avenue you realised it was never going to be enough. The success, the money, the reputation and all the rest of it were always going to disappoint you. Women always disappointed you. Life experiences were always anticlimactic. You didn't know what it was you were looking for so how the fuck could you find it? But you still had that idea, that vision, that one day you'd figure it all out. Inside you were still 21. And you existed in a sort of time warp. Things happened, but they didn't matter, they weren't real, you were just biding time.
And now you sit here and watch her sleep thinking that maybe you were really wasting time. You still don't know what you want or how you're going to find it. You still think life is anticlimactic. You're not bitter exactly, but you do understand what she says when she tells you it doesn't really matter. It doesn't, nothing does. You'll both keep breathing.
Somewhere along the line, between medical school and surgical residency, you came to appreciate that if you're breathing and your heart is beating you're doing ok. Things might not be perfect, but they're comfortable. There's a definite rhythm, contract-relax, in-out, seconds then the repeat.
Medicine is for cynics.
Whether it changed you, made you apathetic, or whether you just started out that way is anyone's guess. But you're ok. You're breathing. You have a pulse. This is what you deal with. Abstract measures of wellness are for psyche residents. Physically, it doesn't matter.
You let the door close behind you and realise you're still wondering how the fuck you got here.