What is she doing, starting a new story?
You're thinking that, right? Right? Yeah, me too. Anyway, it appears that exam time doe does weird things to my head, which means that this story has been rattling around in there for weeks and I just HAD to let it out.
I'll continue if you want me to, so...let me know, kay? And also, you could go read my other stories, which I HAVE updated, but this site/app hates me and they've not been going to the top of the page so no one's been reading. I might even cry (jk) but seriously.
Please read?
And now, end of ramble.
"Is this Addison Shepherd?"
It scares her, that voice. Urgent, but not loud. Controlled.
As tightly controlled as she is, the phone in one hand, pressed to her ear, eyes on the frame in her other hand, bright smiles and a white dress, years between then and now but she can remember like it was yesterday...she wishes it were yesterday because then she wouldn't have done this horrible thing she's done and he'd be at home and that person on the phone wouldn't be saying the things he's saying now.
It's her fault. She did this.
It scares her.
The phone, when it rings in the dark smothering silence of their home she ruined, it scares her.
So many things scare her.
The fact that she doesn't know where he is.
The way he held her, rough, uncaring, as he pushed her. Out. Of their home, out of his life.
.
"Mark," she says, and this time it's not a moan it's a hiss and she's shoving at his shoulders. "Mark-"
.
The way they were, before - because that's how her life will always be from now on, divided irrevocably into a before and an after, by what she did - strangers passing each other, sleeping alone, speaking in cool words and heated gestures.
.
He's fumbling with clothes now but she can't seem to find any of her own, she drags a t-shirt over her head as two sets of footsteps sound on the stairs.
There's the sound of a door slamming, footsteps coming back up the stairs.
.
The way they are now, in the after, screams and tears and doors slammed without goodbyes.
She can still feel her heart thrumming against her chest, rattling its cage, the banister pressing into her cheek. It'll leave marks, soft creases, and they'll fade with time.
Everything heals. With time, she'll heal.
They'll heal. It's going to be okay.
.
"What are you doing," she's saying and her voice isn't hers, it's high and panicky and ...pleading. It's not her voice, it can't be her words.
"What are you doing with my clothes, Derek?"
.
The phone stops ringing and silence descends again, someone's headlights swivel across the windows but she knows better than to think it's him. Hope is dangerous, it lifts you up and slams you back down again. She can't hope.
It was probably Mark, calling again.
Are you okay he said, rushed, like he knew she was about to slam the phone down. He knows her too well, because that's exactly what she did, and anyway there was no point answering because how can she be okay...after what she did?
After what they did?
Mark sounded okay though, of course he sounded okay, he's Mark, solid and dependable and never changing. Derek's the one who changed.
Changed so much. Her clothes are still a sodden heap on the rug in the foyer, she's obsessive about that rug, it's pristine, and now it's going to be stained she realises dully and then she laughs a little at how trivial that is in comparison to what has just happened.
But she noticed it, and she picks up the damp heap and flings it unceremoniously into the empty hamper in the master bathroom, stepping afterwards unto the shower, scrubbing furiously, pink rising to the surface of her skin.
She can still feel him, just this side of rough, insistent, lips on her neck and the burn of an unshaven cheek, red prickles along her collarbones.
.
"I can't look at you," he says, shaking his head disgustedly. "I look at you and I feel nauseous."
.
They burn bright under hot water, steam fogging the glass until she can't see anymore, can't breathe with the water pounding around her.
But she can hear, the phone shrill in the deafening silence.
.
We're not Derek and Addison anymore.
.
Mark knows to leave her alone. He knows her. He cares enough to know this about her, that she needs to be alone. He cares enough to actually do it.
It's hardly going to be Derek.
.
"You stay, I'll go. I'll get my stuff in the morning."
.
It's probably a patient, she reflects as she wraps a towel around herself, hair dripping cold onto her shoulders. A patient, she can handle.
The voice on the other end is unfamiliar though, not one of her residents or even one of her nurses. Unfamiliar, as in she doesn't know who it belongs to.
The tone, she recognises. She's used it herself, at two, three, five in the morning, exhausted and relieved and the slightest bit rushed and annoyed.
"Is this Addison Shepherd?"
Don't know for how long she'd like to say, but obviously she doesn't.
"Yes?"
"You're Derek Shepherd's wife?"
For better or for worse... in sickness and in health.It's her fault. Whichever way you look at it, it's all her fault because she knows the words that will issue from the phone in the next breath.
"I'll be there."
So, should I go on? Stop? Are you bored of me yet? Do I ask too many questions?
Will you please review?
Title : Inara George, Fools in Love. (aka the Addek theme song, bloody fools that they are.)