[Mask]
It always comes in the middle of the night. But this time it's different. Usually, she calls. This time, it's a text from Amelia.
Sam broke up with her.
That's all it says.
He wants to reply — and by all accounts, he should reply — that he's not sure why she's telling him this because it really has no bearing on his life.
But that's a lie, and he knows it. And unfortunately, he knows Amelia knows it, too, even though he and Amelia normally keep their interactions, ever since her visit to Seattle, to such safe topics as, "Mom wants you to call."
They have never broached the particular topic of her before now, and maybe it's for that reason alone that he finds himself texting "Got it. Thanks" back to his little sister.
And then he's calling her. After a few rings, he thinks she's not going to answer and he finds himself debating whether he should leave her a message, but just before it's about to go to voicemail, he hears the call being picked up.
She's silent for a few seconds, and then she finally whispers, "Hello, Derek."
"Addison."
She's quiet again, until, "She told you." He knows she isn't asking, but he tries to deny it anyway.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Derek," she says. "It's two in the morning. And you never call me. Unless it's about a case."
"Hey," he protests. "I call you all the time!"
"No, you don't," she says. "I call you."
"Well," he says, not ready to give in. "I email you a lot."
He gets a little laugh out of her with that. "Yeah," she breathes. "You do."
When she pauses, he can't help himself. "I'm sorry," he tells her.
"I'm fine," she says. "I'm great!"
He knows she's lying, and not just because Amelia wouldn't have texted if she was fine, but he knows her and he knows her well enough to know that Addison always lies that she's fine when she's not. After all, the first real conversation they ever had consisted of her telling him she was "fine," even though he had found her crying in the med school library, trying to hide behind a book.
But he also knows that Addison clings to her lies like lifelines, and he doesn't have the heart to take this one away from her yet.
So he changes the subject.
"Well, since you're so fine," he says. "What are you doing this weekend?"
He almost hears her frown across the distance.
"Why?" she says cautiously.
"Because there's a medical conference in Palm Springs I'm going to, and I wanted to see if you wanted to come."
"Why?" she says again.
"Why not?" he says. "It's a medical conference. You can learn things. And see me. We can hang out. Like friends do."
"Like friends do?" she repeats.
"Are we not friends?" he says.
"No," she says. "We are. We're friends."
"Okay, then," he says. "It's settled. Do you want to come?"
She's quiet again, but finally, after what feels like an eternity, she says, "Sure. I'll go."
Looking back on it, he's not really sure why she agreed. Maybe because she recognized what he was doing — trying to get her away from Sam and the pain and the bad memories — but if he's honest, he thinks she said yes for the same reason he called her. Because she's Addison and he's Derek.
•••••
He gets there a day before she does, and the entire time he's there, floating from presentation to presentation, he wonders if she'll actually show. But when he heads to the lobby at four thirty — when she told him she'd arrive — he's pleasantly surprised to see her walk in the hotel doors.
She looks tired. That's his first thought, his second being that even so, she still looks amazingly gorgeous. But she does look tired. She's paler than he remembers and she looks like she could stand to eat a bit more.
But her eyes light up when she sees him and she almost beams. Just before she throws her arms around his neck, he can see for a second the flash of pain and sadness in her eyes, but then he's holding her and her head is resting on his shoulder. He rubs her back.
"It's good to see you," he says.
She pulls back, and he thinks he sees the glimmer of tears in her eyes, but she blinks and they're gone. He pretends he never saw anything.
He takes her luggage and leads her to their room.
"It's a double-room suite," he tells her when she glances skeptically at him when he hands her his extra key. "Two bedrooms, Addison. Don't worry. I'm not going to jump you in the middle of the night."
"Does Meredith know about this?" she asks, but he ignores her question to focus on opening the door for her.
She's impressed, as he knew she would be, particularly with the private Jacuzzi that he tells her she can have to herself, and he lets her settle in as he goes to grab a beer from the fridge.
He takes her to dinner and they keep the talk to surface-level subjects. Work, weather, how respective families are doing. Mostly work. No mentions of Meredith or Sam or even Amelia. He knows she isn't ready to talk about it yet, but he hopes she'll get there eventually.
There's a cocktail reception for all the doctors at the conference, and he needs to put in an appearance. She tells him she's not ready to be social, so he leaves her at the hotel bar with a gin martini and a promise that she won't go crazy and to call him if she needs him.
He has a bad feeling the entire time he's trying to pretend he's interested in what the other surgeons in the room have to say, but he forces himself to smile and nod and look like he cares. When he finally escapes a few hours later and makes his way back to her, he sees his instincts were right.
She's downing martinis like they're water. Her eyes are glassy and her hair is all mussed up, and when she spots him, she leans toward him and almost tumbles out of her chair.
"Whoa, okay," he says, grabbing her and hoisting her back into an upright position. It's on the tip of his tongue to lecture her, but he bites back the thought. Instead, he orders a water for her and a scotch for him and asks the bartender to put the water in a martini glass so she'll drink it.
The bartender nods understandingly, and when Derek asks him how many she's had, he tells him seven.
Derek is actually kind of amazed she is still functioning — at least for most intents and purposes — after that, but Addison did always have a remarkable tendency for alcohol. He always figured it was probably genetic.
He gets the drinks and brings them back to her. He hands her the water. She takes a sip and frowns at him.
"This tastes funnnnnyyy," she slurs.
"Just drink it, Addie," he tells her. "And we can go back to the room soon."
She doesn't look convinced, but she shrugs and downs it anyway. He signals the bartender for another one and pulls his own drink out of her reach when she tries to grab it from him.
"You look like you had a good time while I was gone," he says softly to her.
She stares at him and he watches her eyes try to focus. Then she slumps forward, her head and her arms on the table.
"I hate my life," she says.
He's afraid she's about to start crying — he knows all too well that Addison's biggest meltdowns occur when she's drunk — so he reaches across to ruffle her hair gently.
"I know," he says quietly. "But you're going to be okay."
He's thankful when the bartender brings them their drinks — two glasses of water for Addison this time.
Derek nudges her arm and offers her one of the glasses.
"You'll feel better," he tells her.
He knows he needs to avoid sensitive subjects, so he asks her what her brother has been up to. That gets her going, and she talks a mile a minute while they finish their drinks.
An hour or so later, he charges everything to their room and helps her up. She's wobbly, and still slightly slurring, but she mostly seems tired. His world is spinning a bit by now, and he thinks maybe he too should have cut back. But it's too late now, so he puts his arm around her waist and they head for the elevator, getting lost five times on the way and laughing harder each time.
She stumbles over her heels when they finally reach their floor, and they both tumble to the ground in a heap. She's giggling so hard she's almost crying and he feels like he can't breathe from the laughter.
Neither one of them can stand, so they decide to crawl the rest of the way — the next morning he is really glad that, as far as he can remember, no other hotel guests were in the vicinity to see them; he's not sure how he would have explained it later. When they reach their room, they take turns trying to unlock the door without actually standing up.
After Addison fails to put the key in for the tenth time, she falls back on to the carpet outside their door and sighs dramatically.
"I give up!" she says. "I'm going to sleep here."
She raises her arms over her eyes and takes a deep breath. He contemplates joining her, but he hears the click and turns the handle.
"Addie," he says, turning back to her. She doesn't respond, so he tugs on her leg. She giggles, but doesn't move, so he drags her inside by her legs.
They lie together on the floor for awhile. He isn't sure how long, but he thinks he may have actually fallen asleep for a bit, because he wakes up to someone shaking his shoulder.
Addison.
She's handing him a bottle of scotch — "Drink with meeee" — and he sees a bottle of gin in her lap.
Again, there is an uneasy feeling in the back of his mind, but he's decidedly drunk by now and everything has that aura of numbness and invincibleness that comes with alcohol, so he takes the bottle from her and takes a sip.
Later, it's all kind of a blur, but he knows she kisses him first. They are sitting side-by-side on the floor, laughing over past memories, mostly involving antics by Mark, when she turns. She takes his face in her hands and she presses her lips to his.
"I don't want to hurt anymore."
It's the first serious thing she's said in awhile.
He puts his glass down and runs his fingers through her tangled locks of hair and kisses her back. Hard. Intense.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows they shouldn't do this, knows this is bad, knows this is wrong, but he's too drunk to listen. Or maybe just too drunk to care. He's not sure which, but he whispers "Okay," into her ear.
He lets her take the lead, and she does. Her lips are pressed roughly to his, and she forces her tongue inside. Her hands find the top button on his shirt and she works her way down. His jeans come off next, and then she pulls back, panting, to yank her own blouse off.
He rolls them over, grabbing the hem of her skirt and forcing the fabric up above her waist. His fingers find their way between her legs, and he can feel the dampness through the flimsy black silk.
He presses his thumb against her and she moans. She reaches up to grab his head and yanks him down toward her.
"Fuck me," she whispers, her breath hot against his ear, as she spreads her legs wider and latches back on to his mouth.
He doesn't wait any longer, not even to remove her panties. He just shoves them to the side and pushes his way inside her.
She's hot and tight around him, and she moans into his mouth, her fingernails digging into his scalp. They move together, rough and fast and hard. She bites his lip at one point and he tastes blood, but they don't stop.
They keep going, faster and harder, until the world explodes into a sea of lights, and for one glorious moment, the pain is gone.
•••••
["When she jumped, she probably thought she'd fly."]
He wakes up before her — she's snuggled into his chest and drooling on his arm — and manages to untangle himself without waking her up.
He's staring over the edge of his cup of coffee, trying to figure out what in the hell he got himself into, when she stumbles out on to their balcony a few hours later. Her hair looks like she was in a fight and she's dressed in sweats and a t-shirt that is on backward. She winces in the sunlight and puts a hand to her head.
He passes her the Advil bottle and an extra mug as she slumps ungracefully into a chair on the opposite side of the table.
She doesn't look at him as she whispers, barely audibly, "I'm so sorry."
"It's okay," he answers.
"I'm really, really sorry."
"It's okay," he says again.
"No, it's not," she says, and her voices catches on the last word. "I did it again. I messed everything up."
He turns his head to look at her. She's still avoiding him, staring off into the distance. He can see tears glimmering on her eyelashes, though.
"It's not your fault," he says.
"I'm pretty sure I started it," she says.
"I'm pretty sure I let you," he says.
She shrugs half-heartedly. "Once a cheater, always a cheater, right?"
She turns to look at him. He can see the circles under her eyes, more prominent in the morning sun and without makeup to hide them.
"Don't say that," he says.
"I should go," she whispers.
She starts to stand up, but he leans over and places a hand on her wrist.
"Don't go."
She shakes her head. "Derek, we slept together." She says this in a hiss, as if he didn't know. "We … I … I shouldn't be here. I don't want to ruin this for you. I ruin everything … I … I'm a mess. … I'm sorry."
She lowers her eyes. His fingers curl tighter around her wrist.
"Addison, this isn't your fault."
"Really?" Her voice has a sharp edge to it. "So what happened last night was an accident?"
He shakes his head. "No. I'm not saying …"
"What do you want from me?" she cuts in. Her eyes have hardened, and she snatches her arm back from his grasp.
That's a good question. What does he want from her? Derek presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose.
"I … don't want to lose you over this," he says. "It was an accident. It shouldn't have happened. It was both our faults."
As the words come out of his mouth, he actually thinks he means them.
"I should go," she says again.
"I don't want you to go." He gestures at her. "Besides, I know you feel like crap, and you shouldn't be driving. Just stay."
She hesitates, tottering from one foot to the other, like she's weighing her options.
"We're friends, right?" he says after a few painfully long seconds.
She shrugs.
"No one ever has to know."
Her eyes narrow. "Derek …"
"No one ever has to know," he says again. "It was an accident. A one-time thing. No one has to know."
This time, she's the one to press her fingers to the bridge of her nose. Finally, she sighs.
"You really want me to stay?"
"I really want you to stay."
She stays.
Neither one of them feels like facing the world, so Derek ditches the conference and they curl up on the couch in their hotel room to watch old movies on TV. They don't talk much, just a little banter here and there, but they both feel the weight of their secret upon them. She falls asleep against his shoulder sometime after lunch, and he watches her breathe, his fingers softly stroking the silky skin of her stomach where her t-shirt has ridden up.
He still can't figure out what the hell he's doing — why he invited her, why he slept with her, why he couldn't let her leave — and he almost wishes for the numbness of the scotch from the night before. He wants to ask her about Sam and about the IVF treatments that failed, he wants to get her to talk to him, but at the same time, he doesn't know if he even wants to hear what she would have to say.
She wakes with a groan and a whimper.
"I feel achy," she moans.
He touches her forehead to determine she's not sick, then tells her it's probably the hangover. His hands find their way to her shoulders, almost from their own free will, and he feels the knots under her skin.
She pulls away from his touch.
"We shouldn't …"
She shakes her head and he drops his hands back into his own lap. She still looks like she's in pain, though, so he finally suggests they go make use of the hot tub.
She stares at him, eyes wide.
He shrugs. "The hot water might help you feel better," he says.
He fills two glasses of wine and they climb into the hot tub, careful to stay on opposite ends — or as opposite as they can get in the tiny space.
She's quiet, pensive. He watches her for awhile, studies the expression on her face.
"You want to talk about it?" he finally asks.
She shrugs.
"Do you miss him? Sam?"
She glances up, then takes a sip of her wine.
"I thought … I thought he was going to be the one," she whispers.
Derek feels his stomach clench at that, but he keeps his face neutral. He doesn't speak.
"I was so stupid," she says.
"Addison …"
"I pushed and pushed and pushed," she says. "I picked a baby over him. And for what?"
She closes her eyes. "I would have been a horrible mother anyway," she mutters.
He speaks at this. "Hey," he says gently. "Don't say that. You would be a wonderful mother."
She scoffs. Her eyes are still closed.
"Yeah," she says. "All children would be lucky to have an adulterous bitch who messes up every relationship she ever has be their mother."
"Addison …"
She opens her eyes. He can see the tears. "I'm a mess, Derek," she says.
"You're having a hard time," he counters.
She shakes her head. "You didn't want me either, remember?"
He swallows. He wants to correct her, but he can't.
"I just … thought it would be different this time," she says. She reaches up to swipe at her eyes, but not before he sees the tear slide down her cheek.
He can't help himself. He's sliding around to her before he knows what he's doing. His hands find her shoulders, his fingers beginning to trace over her skin.
"Derek." She sounds so miserable, so resigned.
"Let me help you," he whispers. "At least let me help you feel better."
She makes a sound of protest as he lifts her up and puts her on his lap, but she doesn't fight. He feels the tension radiating off her, though, as he concentrates on the muscles beneath her skin.
He rubs and kneads, and little by little, he feels her start to relax beneath his hands.
The strings of her bikini get tangled in his fingers, only partly by accident. This time, he's fully aware of what he's doing — no scotch to blame it on — but he does it anyway. She whips her head around when she feels her top come loose. Her eyes are wide, mostly from surprise, but he also catches something else in there.
"It was in the way," he says, but he knows neither one of them believes him, especially as he undoes the knot holding the flimsy material around her neck. It drops into the bubbles beside them.
He keeps his hands on her back for awhile, keeps his fingers working methodically. She's tense again, waiting. She knows what's coming.
He slips his hand around to her stomach, traces the flat panes of her belly, slides his palm down her abdomen. His fingers dip under her bikini bottoms, find her center. The water is steaming and hot, making everything slippery.
He undoes the ties holding her bottoms in place, pulls the material out and lets it float away.
She grabs his wrist as he goes to place his hands on her thighs. Her nails dig into his skin.
"I can't do this," she says. Her voice is almost pleading.
He's not sure exactly what she's referring to at first, but she clarifies.
"I can't get hurt again. Please."
"I don't want to hurt you," he says, and he means it.
She bites her lip. "If we do this," she says, then falters. "I can't be that person again. I can't be a cheater."
There is something in her eyes, in the way she is looking at him, and with a jolt, he recognizes it.
And it's not fair, what he does next. It's not fair at all, and he knows it, and he sort of hates himself for it, is almost nauseas about it, but maybe this is who he is, who he's always been.
"It's up to you," he says, because he knows what she's going to say before he even asks the question. "If you want to stop, we'll stop."
But his fingers are already tracing her clit and he's looking into her eyes, and he can see by her expression how much she wants this, wants him.
Her mouth moves, and she looks like she's trying to say something, but in the end, all she says is, "Please don't hurt me."
He doesn't answer her, just silences her with a kiss. She kisses him back, and he knows it's her way of saying yes.
He doesn't wait, just slips his fingers inside her, his other hand finding one of her breasts, his thumb rubbing over her nipple. She moans into his mouth as he moves his fingers faster. She rocks against him, and everything is so slippery because of the water, he has to let go of her breast and move his hand to wrap around her body to hold her in place.
He keeps kissing her, even as she pants, and he swallows her cry as she comes, her muscles throbbing around his fingers. He removes his fingers and turns her around, letting her straddle his lap. Her head is against his chest as she struggles to regain her breath, and he stands up, lifting her fully out of the water.
He grabs a towel off the railing as he carries her back into their hotel room, lays her across the bed in his room.
He uses the towel to mop up some of the water, then uses his tongue to suck off the rest.
She moans and whimpers and tries to help, but he pushes her hands away each time she reaches toward him and holds her securely to the bed.
They are still both damp when he slides inside her. She wraps her arms and her legs around him and presses her lips to his.
It's slow and gentle and sweet in a way it hasn't been since the early days of their marriage. She whispers she loves him as they come down from their highs, and he wraps his arms around her in response, tugging her against him.
He has no idea what he's doing.
•••••
Somewhere in the night he has a dream. About Meredith and Post-its and an elevator of mementos. Of vows and candle houses. And Zola.
Zola.
He wakes with a start, a horrible, gut-wrenching feeling plummeting over him.
She sees it on his face as soon as her eyes flutter open.
"Derek?" she whispers. She sounds afraid.
He can't even look at her. His stomach is in knots. "I'm sorry," he whispers.
It's quiet for so long, he starts to think she might have left, but then she speaks.
"You promised." There is no accusation, just overwhelming hurt.
"I'm sorry." It's all he can say.
The sting across his face is unexpected. Deserved, but unexpected. Fury and pain are trading places as they flash across her face. She looks about ready to cry.
"I hate you." Her voice is trembling. "Don't ever talk to me again. I never want to see you again. Ever."
She yanks the sheet from the bed, trying to cover herself. She races from the room, tripping over the bottom of the sheet tangled around her feet. He hears her slamming drawers, throwing items into a suitcase. He thinks he hears a tiny sob, but he's not sure. He doesn't move, doesn't try to go after her. He just buries his head in his hands and waits.
The sound of a door closing has never been as loud as the quiet ping when she shuts it behind her.
•••••
Amelia calls him six days later. He almost dreads answering it, but in truth, he is surprised she waited this long.
"I know what you're going to say," he says before she can get a word out.
"Addison is in the hospital."
His world stops. He actually falls onto an empty gurney in the hall.
"What?" he manages to croak out. "Why?"
"Alcohol poisoning." She pauses. "It's bad," she says.
He's on the next plane out. He finds Amelia pacing the halls of the hospital. She waves him in the direction of Addison's room, but grabs his arm before he can head that way.
He turns to her. He can't remember her ever looking so serious.
"I found her," she practically hisses. "She was unconscious on the kitchen floor. She was barely breathing. They had to pump her stomach."
He's not sure what to say. Amelia keeps talking.
"Everyone thinks it was an accident." She makes sure to look him directly in the eyes as she says the next part. "I don't think it was."
He stares at her, and he knows.
"She told you," he says. It's all he can think of to say.
She glares at him. "She's in love with you! What the fuck is wrong with you? How could you do that to her? All she wanted was a happy ending."
He shakes his head, pinches the bridge of his nose. He feels dizzy, sick to his stomach.
"I'm here now," is all he can manage.
Her eyes don't move away from his face. "You hurt her again, and I'll kill you," she says.
He has no doubt she means it.
Addison is still sedated when he enters her room. He takes a seat in the chair by her bed, holds the hand not connected to IVs and heart monitors and waits.
Eight hours later, her eyes flutter. She blinks a few times, groans softly, turns her head and finally sees him. Her eyes widen in confusion.
"Derek?" she croaks.
He reaches for the ice chips on the table beside him and drops a couple into her mouth. He keeps holding her one hand in his.
He waits for a few seconds, until he's sure they've melted, to speak.
"What the hell did you do, Addison?" He keeps his voice soft, gentle, as non-accusatory as possible. He wants to convey worry, fear, not blame.
She's faltering for words.
He squeezes her hand to show her it's okay.
"I'm sorry," he says. "For that morning. I'm so sorry."
He watches her carefully. He can see her replaying everything in her mind. Her eyes flood with tears.
"I'm so stupid," she whispers. She tries to tug her hand out of his, but he doesn't let her.
"No," he says. "I was the stupid one. I promised you, and then I hurt you."
She turns her head away from him, focuses on the wall by her bed.
"You should go," she says.
"I'm not going anywhere."
"Derek." She must summon all the strength she can muster, because her voice comes out strong, determined. "You have a wife and a child."
"No, I don't," he says.
"What?"
She turns back to look at him, frowning.
He corrects himself. "I have a child," he says. "Yes, but that's it."
"What are you talking about?"
"I left Meredith."
"What?"
"I was flying back to Seattle," he says. "After … after it happened … and all I could think was that someone was going to get hurt. … And then I realized that the one person I most didn't want to get hurt was the one I already hurt."
He takes a breath. "I told Meredith that night. Everything. We're getting a divorce."
"Because of me?" Addison says.
"Because of me," he says. "Because of her and I. It's been a long time coming."
"Derek …" He watches as a tear breaks loose and drips down her cheek. "I don't know if … if I can …"
"I know," he says. He reaches up with his thumb and wipes the moisture off her cheek. "And I'm not asking you for anything. If you want me to leave, just say the words. I'll leave if you ask."
She doesn't answer. She just looks at him, really looks at him.
Finally, after what seems a lifetime, she speaks. "What if I ask you to stay?"
He smiles. "Then I'll stay," he says. "For as long as you want."
"What if I ask you to stay forever?"
"Then I'll stay forever."
He squeezes her hand. She asks him to stay. He stays.