Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Character: Addison & Derek
Rating: T
Status: Complete (One-Shot)
Disclaimer : Characters and show belong to Shonda Rhimes. Title of the fiction belongs to Beyonce (Halo)
Author's Note: Early Birthday present for my sweet amazing Middle Name Twin! She turns 20 next week but considering I'm in the apartment during the week and that I'm always so busy when i'm there, I thought of posting it earlier. I hope you won't mind, hun! I know you love happy things so I decided to write something nice, even if in my own way. LOL There's a lot of drama too, though. & Happy Early Birthday! Enjoy it!
I can feel your halo.
The night was cold and rainy but Derek didn't care about it because he was used to it. Seattle's weather was rainy and foggy most of the year and after living there for such a long time, the doctor was so used to it that every ray of sun felt like something magic to him.
Shivering, Derek quickly got into the car and started driving. The Clash were playing and he was whistling after his favorite group, his favorite song. The car slowly got warm and he started to relax a bit.
It was pouring so much that he could barely see the street, the other cars. He squinted and focused on the street. The rain just wouldn't stop. With his hands tight on the steering wheel, Derek kept on driving.
He was thinking about his successful brain cancer surgery when hell happened. Something hit the back of his car that crashed against the front car and started to roll on itself. Derek was thrown out of the car and fell on the wet asphalt, right next to guardrail.
Raindrops kept falling on his head, he couldn't stand up, he couldn't move. All he could do was lying there.
His light blue shirt got immediately wet and so did his blue jeans, his hair, his body. He was feeling so cold, so cold he had never felt before.
Through his shirt Derek could feel the asphalt scratching his back. It hurt, it hurt so much he had no words to express how much he was hurting in that moment of his life.
A trickle of blood ran out of his mouth, he could feel its warmth against his cold face. Derek's head was terribly hurting, he probably had a head trauma. His body was getting colder and colder every second and he knew what it meant. He couldn't help but shiver. He wanted to scream, he wanted to cry, he wanted to ask for help but he was so weak that he had no voice left.
It felt like hours to him even if only few minutes had passed. His eyes closed, he was trembling like a leaf and, suddenly, he felt so weak and tired. Derek tried to resist the cozy torpor that was invading him but, despite all his efforts, the doctor closed his eyes and surrendered.
Derek had never been a mystic person but still, he started experiencing something unexplainable. His eyes closed, his body frozen, the doctor saw that comfortable light everybody talks about. That light that seems to call you, that's ready to welcome you.
He saw himself walking to it. He was wearing the very same outfit he had on now but his body wasn't cold and wet. It was dry and warm. He was perfectly healthy.
The light was so dazzling that he had to protect his eyes with his hands but there was something special in it. Truth was, that that light felt like home. Every step Derek took toward it, he started to feel protected, safe, healthy.
On the other side, Derek knew that entering that light meant saying goodbye to his life. He just couldn't help but walk to it, there was no reason to turn around and run away.
He couldn't know that the paramedics were already working on him, they were trying their best to save his life. Meredith was sitting on her knees on the wet asphalt, holding his hand and begging him to stay with her. She needed him to live, she needed him to be alive.
All those things, he couldn't see nor hear them. Suddenly he became numb and empty. He was ready to die.
"Are you sure you want to give up?"
An angelic voice had just spoken. It was the first sound he had heard since he was in his limbo. Derek stopped walking and looked left, then right. Nobody was there.
"Are you sure you're ready to leave?"
The voice was now a little more real and even if it was angelic, it was sad and broken.
He couldn't tell if it was a female or a man voice because it was that kind of angelic, unnatural voice you never hear in your life.
"Who are you?" Derek asked. He wasn't scared, he knew he was in a safe place but he wanted to know who was talking to him. That voice wasn't familiar to him, maybe it was an angel or somebody wanting him to go back to life.
"It doesn't matter who I am, Derek."
"Where are you?" the man looked in every possible direction "I can't see you!"
"Just look at this" the voice suggested.
In front of Derek's eyes appeared a smoky cloud and images started playing. It was raining and there were a lot of people, all dressed with black clothes. Black umbrellas on their heads. They were crying. Some of them were hugging each other, they were trying to be strong. In the middle of the crowd there was a dark brown wooden coffin with beautiful white flowers on it.
"This is your funeral. You're death will break a lot of people" the voice announced.
"Look" Derek was starting to lose his patience "I can't go back. I'm uh… I'm ready to die. I've just had a dire car crash and there's no chance I'll survive. I've hit my head pretty badly and-"
The smoky cloud disappeared and something else came into sight. A person. A very familiar one.
"You have to go back! You can't just die now! Not like that, Derek. You have to fight, you have to be strong!"
Her appearance left him speechless. So, the voice belonged to a woman. It belonged to her. Sure, it was a different voice but it was her. She didn't want him to die, she wouldn't have let him die.
She was wearing a simple black dress and matching shoes but her make-up was all smudged, her eyes red, her hair messy. She looked devastated, broken. The woman even looked paler and thinner than her usual.
"Don't look at me with those shocked eyes, Derek. I've told you. Your death will break a lot of people" she admitted, looking at him straight in the eyes.
He closed his eyes and shook his head, trying to send that image away.
"I'm not going anywhere" she stated, crossing her bare skinny arms on her lap.
"Addison…" he whispered, looking down at his feet "Please"
"No, Derek" she denied "I won't let you die"
Summoning up all his strength, Derek looked at her in eyes. Even if shattered, his ex-wife still looked beautiful. Silent tears started streaming down his face, the pain was starting to get real.
"I'm sorry, Addison" he whispered "My time has come"
"No, it hasn't!" she exclaimed and their body touched for the very first time.
Addison grabbed Derek's arms in order to shake his body but she didn't manage to do it because everything was gone. The light, the limbo, Derek, herself. All vanished.
Derek exhaled a deep breath, his eyes snapped open, and he came back to life.
SIX MONTHS LATER
The recovery had been long and painful but Derek got out of the accident even stronger than before. What he saw while being unconscious on the street made him realize that he still had something left to live. It wasn't only that, though. Thanks to his vision, Derek realized that there was something missing in his life, something he could never replace, something he could never forget. Someone, actually.
His feet moved fast to the house on the beach. Derek felt anxious and excited at the same time. He had been told that, when he was in a coma, she had been there for him, holding his hand and talking to him.
His index finger pushed the door bell. Few seconds later the door opened and he finally saw her again. She wasn't wearing a black dress and her make-up wasn't all smudged this time.
"Oh my God, Derek!" she exclaimed, sincerely happy to see him standing on his own feet.
"Hi Addison" he replied, smiling. He felt the urge to hug her and so he did.
"You look good" she said, hugging him back.
He let go of her and they both got in. He had never been there before but the house was quite lovely, he thought while following Addison to the living room.
"I have to tell you something" he announced as sitting down on the comfortable sofa.
"Are you okay?" she asked, concerned.
"I am, now" he reassured her "When I was on the street… on the asphalt, I uh…" he sighed "I saw you. I was in this limbo walking to the famous light everybody talks about and you were there"
"Really?" she chuckled, offering him a glass of wine which he politely refused.
"I'm serious, Addison" he wasn't laughing, his voice was serious and honest "So… I was ready to leave this world. To die, you know" he confessed.
"Derek…" she whispered and sat right next to him, taking a sip of her red wine.
"I know it sounds crazy but you saved my life up there, Addison" his voice started to break. The memory of that night was still vivid in his mind "You told me that my death would have broken a lot people, that I needed to fight, that I had to be strong…" Derek started to sob.
"Hey hey…" she said, she didn't even know what to say because she had never seen Derek this shattered before "Come here" Addison continued, pulling Derek into her arms "You're alive, Derek. You are strong, you're a fighter."
"I uh…" he raised his head and looked at her in the eyes "You're the one who saved me, Addison. You were there in this freaking limbo. Nobody else was there" he let go of Addison and buried his head in his hands.
"Meredith was there" she admitted, patting him on the back "She's been there with you all the time" she sighed "On the asphalt. I mean. She's been holding your hand through-"
"I didn't see her" Derek interrupted her and stood up "I didn't hear her. It was you, Addison" he started walking in the big room "Even when I was in a coma… I could hear you" he took a deep breath "And in the limbo, I could see you" he stopped and looked at his ex-wife "I could feel you, Addison" he confessed.
Addison stood up as well and ran to Derek's arms. His speech broke her heart, she had never heard something like this and being a woman of science, she didn't really believe in miracles and religion but she also knew that Derek was telling the truth. Addison could see it in his broken eyes.
Derek opened his arms and welcomed Addison in. Their bodies touched and they fit perfectly, as they used to fit when they were married. Their hearts beat in synch and all the fear, all the pain were gone.
"The moment you touched me… in the limbo, I mean" he caressed her long red hair "I came back to life, Addison" he leaned his head on Addison's right shoulder and allowed himself to cry all the tears he had been trying to hold till then.
"Derek, I…" her heart started beating faster and faster. Being so close to her ex-husband made her feel something special, something she had forgotten. She had shivers all along her backbone.
The man raised his head, his eyes were red and his face was all wet. The blue of his eyes was even more intense and his lips were trembling a little.
"I've realized…" he said between the sobs "That you're the one for me, Addison. You're my saving grace, you're the one who'd suffer the most if I died" he caressed her cheek, she was crying too now "For all this time, I've been blind, I've been stupid for letting you go" he exhaled deeply "Meredith and I… we have never had what you and I had. She's not you, Addison" Derek admitted while moving a lock of Addison's rebel hair behind her left ear "When I had to choose, I chose wrong. I should have never ever let you go, Addie."
Once again, Addison didn't know what to say. After leaving Seattle, she had slept with a lot of men and even fell in love with a couple of them but no one had never replaced Derek. She didn't want to admit it but replacing Derek was something impossible because he was the one for her, he was her one and only.
Being so close to each other they became one thing only. Like they used to be when they were young.
Derek knew he should have never left his wife, Addison realized she should have tried harder.
He took her head in his hands, caressing her delicate skin and her soft hair. He closed his eyes and kissed her on the lips. It started as a delicate, unsure, kiss.
Their lips touched and everything else just faded away. The room, the sound of the waves breaking against the rocks, the low music the radio was playing. Everything was just gone. It was like the whole world disappeared.
She was crying, he was crying. After a long time, they were together again and they both knew that nothing in the world would have kept them apart from now on.
The kiss got hotter and hotter every second and Derek gently pushed Addison against the wall. He kissed her so hard she could barely breath.
"I've missed you, Addison" he moaned when he finally let go of her lips to catch some fresh air.
"Me too, Derek. Me too" she replied, shedding tears of joy.
From that moment, Derek and Addison had never been apart again because they needed each other in order to survive, in order to live.