A/N: Who hasn't wanted to play around with the crap they've given us in the last two episodes? Alright, so my take here, even though it's been done nine hundred times before. Thanks to escapismrocks for giving it a read and the title as well as the cut text belong to Dashboard Confessional because I'm emo like that. Enjoy-
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Vindicated
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Mark saunters from the elevator with his head held low, inner workings chiming away on all the reasons why his best friend should still actually be his ex-best friend. He had a moment. A raw, unveiled second of self pity and Derek turned it into a competition not only proving that he wasn't a whore (and has no clue as to what the position entails) but that he was definitely only the asshole they had all come to know in the passing years. His shoes scuff along the sidewalk on his way to the parking lot. Another night, another drink, another bed, another girl. It doesn't really sound all that appealing today. Hell, he turned down Callie. Smoking hot Calliope the bone crusher who could, in fact, be as kinky as he is. He doesn't want sex. He wants someone to listen for once and that's just a tiny problem when he's made a point of not needing to talk it all out his entire life (that is, excluding the numerous conversations with all the therapists before managing to get them into bed).
When he sat earlier in the day, slouched uncomfortably, staring at his lap he tried to convince himself to get in the mood because if there is one thing he is useful for it's keeping women pleased but hours into the gearing up session he realized it wasn't going to happen. Then stood Miranda Bailey (who he knows holds him in no higher regard than a piece of gum drug off the underside of a table, painfully similar to how everyone else feels about him in Seattle) speaking on his behalf and it hurt a little, the things she chose to say. It shook him into a dazzling red world of reality and all he wants is to crawl back into his little gray cave convincing himself that everyday is a great day as long as he is getting laid and cutting people open so that they can feel better about themselves; so he can feel better about himself.
He hates that he knows differently. He despises the fact that Addison opened a distinctive door for him, then slammed it in his face and took the key with her only to bury it in the sand and return with some self-obliterated walking shell of his truest love. He hates that. He kind of hates her a little, for pushing him onto other women, for actually talking to him outside of foreplay and pillow murmurings, for understanding there was more to him than thrashing orgasms and expensive gifts, for letting him feel loved- if only naively and briefly.
--
How this all led to him racing to the airport and stupidly hopping the next flight to LA is really anyone's guess. He's tired and needs a vacation…or something. There was too much thinking going on to actually straighten out anything into a logical unlinked plan. But here he is anyway. Eleven at night, warm under his stuffy leather jacket and trying to untangle his hand from his jeans so he can knock on her door (the very same door he spent the last twenty minutes convincing Sam to give him the address to). It takes a good five minutes and a few deep breaths that he will never admit to needing before the action can be completed and in the thirty seconds it takes her to shuffle around he almost dashes out onto the beach to bury his head in the sand.
"Mark?" She rubs her eyes and straightens out her ponytail before running a hand over her gray sweats and old, snug, purple t-shirt emblazed with a faded advertisement for some coffee shop Savvy worked at during law school. Those were the good days. Days when he was a dog but he was young and it was okay because people still expected something from him. Now people only expect his tongue between their thighs and his fingers threaded through their hair.
"Hi." He grins, drinking her in. The make-up free face, the bare feet and the rumpled hair. It suits her. Even tired, disheveled Addison is absolutely breathtaking. It makes him want to slap her.
"Wh-what are you doing here?" She pulls the door open a little wider to reveal a warmly lit entryway, the likes of which his eyes have never seen before.
"I-"
"Addison? Who is it?" Mark watches as a tall hippie looking man strides forward and puts himself in his friend's personal space. He thinks he can still call her that though outside of sneers, petty jabs and thoughtless turn downs they haven't spoken much in months.
"Hi." Mark smiles widely. No one is going to intimidate him, especially this fool in his cargo shorts and weird flip flops. No. Just no.
Addison swallows heavily for a moment, glancing from man to man. One her ex-dirty, very dirty, mistress and one her almost, could-have-been but thank god it wasn't co-worker. "Mark this Pete, Pete Mark. I-Pete and I work together at the clinic…and this is Mark. We worked together in Seattle…and New York."
"Ah, another doctor. Just what we needed." Pete waves him in when Addison fumbles with the door knob and loses her manners.
"So, Mark, what do you do exactly?" Pete asks gesturing to the kitchen.
"Surgeon. You?"
"Alternative medicine practitioner."
"Oh a quack." He nods and follows them through the inviting living room. It all reeks of Addison. The colors, the decoration, the few new art pieces. He's happy to see nothing man related in the main rooms as they trudge on.
"Mark-"
"It's fine. I get that a lot. At least twice a day from this one." Pete pokes Addison in the ribs and she playfully pushes his fingers away. A surge of pain slices through Mark's stomach when he sees how at ease they are around each other. The other guy clears his throat, "So what brings you to town?"
"Pete, would you excuse us please?" Addison pushes herself off the counter and grabs Mark's forearm with an apologetic look.
"No problem. I'll just grab some drinks and meet you…in the living room."
--
He's certain being drug upstairs into her bedroom should have been a turn on but he knows it is only because it is the room farthest away and least likely to spill out any noise should an argument arise. She's always thinking like that. He finds it infuriating if not a little adorable. He never saw himself with a thinker, he never really saw himself with anyone before her.
"What are you doing here?" She demands, turning toward the closet for something more presentable to throw on not that it really needs to be done. He's seen her at her self-destructive best and worst.
"Apparently crashing your sleepover." He quips and plops down on the bed, making sure to look at ease because that annoys her and he needs level ground.
She can't help but correct it, mainly because the prospect of Mark in her bedroom is making her a touch loopy but also because he deserves to know and she's trying to become a better person. A bigger person who shares and speaks the truth. One who knows when to fight the good fight and when the good fight is over. It's not perfect but she's getting there. She does have an awful lot of time on her hands now. "His apartment is being fumigated. He has nowhere else to go because Naomi and Sam are shacked up for the weekend while Maya is at some violin camp thing and before you can ask the answer is no. He is not my boyfriend nor has he ever been. We kissed…stupidly…I was having a bad day, well several bad days actually and…that's it."
"Ok." He shrugs and spreads his palms over the soft white material of bed covering.
"So now you tell me what you are doing here." Considering she just left Seattle a little while ago and he seemed so happy and horny, she's confused.
"I just wanted to talk." He admits quietly, finding her blue eyes, hoping she can see the hint of truth and not push him over the edge into a random fight.
"You haven't heard of a phone?" She reappears from the closet with a tight pair of jeans on to compliment the purple shirt and the still very bare feet. It's as good as she's getting.
"Wanna go get a drink?"
"Do I want to go get a drink? Hmm…No. It's almost midnight and some of us have to work tomorrow." Her hands find her hips and she takes the low road because it's comfortable and she knows where the bumps are located and how to swerve around the pot holes dangerously without tumbling down the side of the mountain.
"Right. Ok." He murmurs. His hands clench onto the material behind him and he exhales loudly, finally starting to feel the idiocy behind the impulsive action. There is nothing like being shot down by Addison and what's worse is that after all this time of her making it clear they are nothing and will never be anything, he still cares.
She quietly jumps onto the firm mattress next to him, swivels around to face him and crosses her legs Indian style. "What's going on?"
"Nothing."
"Just tell me." She pulls the red (again) tendrils free and lightly shakes them out.
He inhales shallowly when the sweet scent of her conditioned hair floats under his nose. "One of my surgeries got canceled today."
"Someone steal your OR?" She questions, hands fidgeting with the cuff of her jeans because she can never sit still when he is near.
"No." He shakes his head and gently mimics her position, careful to keep his hands to himself.
"Patient die?"
"No." He scoffs. His rarely die and after watching Derek's clinical trial auditions all he can think is thank god for people wanting plastic surgery. He couldn't do what they do and still be a functioning human being day in and day out. That's a secret for another time though, one that even the highest of his paid counselors have not been privy to.
"Mark, use your words so I can sleep soon." She pleads, giving her pants a break and mindlessly drawing patterns over the soft skin of her right foot.
His eyes watch her fingers swirl in a dizzying dance. "The nurses are striking."
"Again?"
"No, they're striking me and all of my surgeries so I couldn't do anything. I'm useless."
"You aren't useless." She immediately rectifies and then gently rubs his arm trying to think of something else to say. She's got nothing. He was useless to her and he knows it as well as she does.
He's not going to tell her that she may be the only person outside of Derek's mother who still believes he is worth something so instead he blurts out, "I miss you," because his day couldn't get any more abysmal.
She grins as her cheeks flush immediately and nods, "I miss you too. I miss talking to you Mark, you should call- I should call more too. I haven't been good about keeping in touch. I'm trying to be better."
He doesn't really like new Addison all that much, partially because he thought old Addison was fucking fantastic (except when she was driving him absolutely insane) and partly because he knows it's a load of bullshit that she is shoveling over the darkest depths of her soul in attempt to mask the fact that she is very much not okay and not at peace with herself and what she has made of her life. He tucks a few strands of hair behind her ear and lets his hand trail over her glowing cheekbone on the way down. They were happy once, he was convinced and now he's stalking her home in the middle of the night just to hear her voice, some life that is.
"Uh…I'm just going to go to bed Addison; I'll see you in the morning."
She springs up and away from Mark and clears her throat looking at Pete in the opened doorway. "Yeah, ok. Yeah. There are more blanket-"
"It's fine Addison, I'm sure I'll sleep just fine." Pete grins at Mark knowingly and disappears down the hall hoping that ear plugs magically appear in the bedside table he looked in before.
--
"Mark, I don't know what you want from me." Addison mumbles, pacing the floor, toes barely touching before her feet lift themselves again.
"I…" He stops himself. He doesn't know what he wants either, what he needs. All he wanted to do was talk but as out of character as it is he shouldn't have expected her to understand the necessity. "They're thinking about a lawsuit…or they were before Bailey yelled at them."
"Who? What? Why did Miranda yell?" She stops and scratches the back of her neck curiously.
"The nurse's strike. Something about sexual harassment. I blanked out but things are not good. Definitely not good." He stopped listening when the red flag waved, signaling his impending surgical demise. Unfortunately, Mark is a surgeon/whore like the car is a transportation device, outside of a few minor changes they really can only do one thing and if you remove that then they are meaningless…or so everyone likes to keep telling him.
She laughs exasperated and combs a few fingers through he newly dyed red hair. The whole idea of brown only served to prove that she had changed but in truth she liked the red better, even if she had to be her old boring self with it. Brown was for Seattle and she's done trying to convince herself that she has changed that drastically. "Well that's a long time coming. You should probably make sure the nurses in New York don't find out because they will take you to the cleaners."
"Thanks." He stands up, dejected and moves toward the door.
"Wait, where are you going?"
"I don't know. Home, I guess. This was a mistake." His hand brushes the cool metal of the door latch as she calls his name. He turns around, roughly worn by the day. "I know you think I'm nothing more than a booty call and I know that I haven't proven to be very helpful in anyone's life, especially lately, but would it kill you to give me just an ounce of the support I have given you in the last four years?" She remains motionless, lungs barely sucking air in. "I was your friend, no? You needed someone to bitch about Derek to, I was there. You needed someone to convince you that you were worth being loved; I loved you until it terrified me. You needed to get screwed, I handled that. Work problems, intern fucking, failed bets, botched family plans, furniture moving, shoe throwing, puke cleaning- Me, me, me. All me. I was everything…and I never meant anything to you."
"Mark, I-"
"You're a selfish bitch, you know that Addison?" Instead of anger he watches her face crumple but he can't help himself. "All you do is take and hold people to higher standards than you are willing to comply to. You left me for Derek and you couldn't even be bothered enough to make that work. Then you choose the stupid intern who has now knocked up Jane Doe because simply telling me that you didn't want me was too hard. Stringing me along was much better. You're a bitch. You may be right all the time and I may be useless to everyone but at least I'm honest and I don't expect anyone to hold me up on a pedestal." He slams his door on the way out of the house, feeling remotely guilty for taking his bad day out on her but it's not like it didn't need to be said and it's not like he wouldn't welcome an apology for once. All he wanted was to talk. It was so simple in theory, in practicality their relationship rained down over him like the proverbial cartoon black cloud.
She doesn't chase him down or meet him at the airport. She doesn't run into his arms and tell him she can't live without him because she can, she has been. She doesn't call him when he returns home and he never thinks twice about dialing her number on the down nights in the hotel room that he really needs to move out of.
This is what he is. This is what she made him. This is what he allowed himself to be and he's finally content enough to recognize it and wallow.
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She spent the early morning hours after that night curled under her blankets trying not to cry loudly in fear that Pete would wake up and demand answers to questions she'd rather not think about. She sniffled into the pillows and hiccupped into the warm air. Her eyes were dried with the back of her right hand and she rocked back and forth imagining someone much stronger holding her tight.
There were no more nights of crying after that. There was a resolve that his words wouldn't impact her (no matter how true they were and no matter how much they stung). That she wouldn't be affected and infected by his bad day but none of that explains why she is impatiently tapping her black flat on the floor of a well memorized elevator in Seattle. She watches the numbers illuminate up above and she already hates herself for being here. She was content to live in her grey world where things needed no explanation and she could hide under the sunny skies pretending to be a better person than anyone knew her to be. It was blissful delusion. One that no one ever questioned.
She lightly raps the door with her knuckles and prays that there are no random nurses hiding behind it. "Cal-lie." She wrangles out, her throat immediately constricting.
"Hey. Hi. Addison!" She calls out loudly, and they both listen as Mark scurries from the bed to presumably find clothing.
Addison turns around and takes off without another word. This is what she gets. This is what she deserves for being infinitely late in their friendship. She's always ten feet behind trying to figure out if he has a point she is willingly going to concede to or if he's spouting bullshit again. That night was not crap. That night was a frighteningly accurate depiction of who she is and who she wants to stop being. The problem is she doesn't know how to do that without him and furthermore she's not sure she wants to try.
"Addie wait!" Mark pulls up his jeans, zips and buttons them, running down the hall. He watches her jab at the elevator button relentlessly and by the time he reaches the end of the hall he has to jump into the closing doors with hope that his arm won't get caught. "What the hell?!"
She looks to the ground, stares at her shoes, her purse, her freshly manicured nails but says nothing.
"Addison, damn it! What are you doing here?"
Her jaw clenches and she swallows the sobs that try to wrench their way out into the world. "I'm a…you were right…I'm selfish and I never gave you the time of day but I wasn't…string- stringing you along." She meets his eyes briefly before deciding it's too much. "I wasn't…I-I was scared is…all. I was afraid…and I'm sorry. That's what I wanted to say. That's why I'm here." The doors fly open and she leaves him shirtless and without shoes or a wallet to follow her. Instead he stands and watches the water pour down outside of the lobby windows completely baffled before a clerk suggests impolitely that he head back upstairs.
--
It took Mark three weeks and an eventful night out with Hahn and his new fuck buddy Callie to set the record straight. He was drunk, said things that shouldn't have been said, hit on people who shouldn't have been hit on but he does remember a brief moment where Erica told him to pull his head out of his ass, stop complaining about his life and do something about it. He never knew he was that transparent, that everyone could so easily see all the things that were wrong but him.
So now (after drinking and screwing and more drinking) Mark's on yet another plane, hoping not to see Addison making out with hippie boy or some surfer and praying that he can win her back because this life he has made is incomplete without one annoying, bragging, self-involved redhead. He grins when they land and the butterflies twitch about in his stomach in a way he has never felt before. He reminds himself that this could end horribly. She could slap him (which he enjoys), she could tell him to fuck off (which might get her pinned against a wall), or she could simply walk away but he would follow her.
What he doesn't know is that he already follows her everyday. He lingers in her mind, locked into the small vault of things she doesn't allow herself to think of. The regrets, the could have beens, the hopes, the memories, they are all safely tucked away in a place that doesn't interfere with her daily life because if she allowed those notions out into the free world then she would miss him too much. Her life isn't complete without a blunt, brooding, cocky asshole and she knows it but that doesn't mean she can't live every day out fooling people into thinking otherwise.
What they both realize as Mark enters Addison's office after conversing with the poor twelve year old at the reception desk is that it doesn't matter if she is nagging bitch ninety-nine percent of the time and it doesn't matter if he is a cheating bastard one hundred percent of the time. They've spent enough time apart, enough time convincing themselves they don't want each other so that as the opportunity presents itself once again all they can feel is pure dumb luck that there's another chance out there for them after all.
"Hi." He grins, watching as she sits up quickly on the couch. He looks at the lavender walls and grins to himself. She belongs here.
"Hey…Mark." As she stands her hands instantly find the bottom of her shirt to twist and her stomach jumps into her throat.
"Hi." He states again, and then steps closer. "I'm sorry-"
"Don't. Just don't be sorry. I deserved it. I get it now." Addison replies.
"I-" He starts and then stops when she shakes her head. She inches forward and reaches a hand up to play with his white collar. Callie dressed him for the occasion and he complained the entire time about looking too preppy but the raven haired surgeon flat out told him that he needed all the help he could get. Now he's happy that she appears to be enjoying the starch and tight neck.
Her fingers gently undo the top two buttons and she steps back again. "There, now it's you."
He smirks and runs a hand over where she last touched. "You wanna go grab a drink?"
Her eyes dart around the room and she shrugs, "I'm working Mark…at work…working."
"Right."
"But if you were to come back in about three hours and wanted to have dinner I might not object." Her smile dances wildly and he can't help but join her.
"Yeah?"
"Yes, you do owe me a drink after all."
He nods, "That I do. So…I'll be back."
"I hope so." Herself inside self chides her for being a fourteen year old when her heart skips a beat and then she takes things into her own hands, "Mark?" she calls as his hand reaches for the door knob.
"Hmm?"
"One more thing." She warns sternly and he looks back confused, certain that in the three minutes he's been staring at her he hasn't done anything inappropriate. In his head he's had a few scenarios planned but there's no way he said them out loud in the real world.
"Wha-" He's cut off by her lips crashing into his and they stumble back against the jarred door. It slams shut with their weight pressed into it and he tangles his fingers through the only hair he's been craving this year. She tastes sweet and fresh, much unlike the Addison of old but at the same time there's still something there that is unquestionably her. He can't describe it and she pulls back far too quickly for his liking.
He juts a hand out around her waist to bring her back but she shakes her head with a coy smile. "No…no, we're doing this right this time." Her finger comes to a point and he thinks he might lose it if she wags it seductively one more time.
"We're not having sex again?" He whines.
"I didn't say that."
"Thank God." He murmurs and quickly looks away as she glares at him. It was his idea anyway but now it just sounds ridiculous, "I mean…I would…if you wanted to. You're worth it."
"You bet I am." She quips (even though she has spent many of the last few years wondering if she actually is) as he staggers forward and tries to grab another kiss for the road but she pushes back on his chest. "See you later."
"Yes you will." He replies and drifts from the room in a half-walking, half-floating movement that has the entire crew of Oceanside curiously staring at the odd man half of them know too well and the other half have no clue about. As they watch Mark wander into the elevator they hear a sheer squeal of delight coming from behind the closed door of one Dr. Addison Montgomery.
"Bout damn time." Sam mumbles and ushers his group back to their own lives.
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