So I lied. This is my last chapter. Just a oneshot, with substantial Addek, Callie/Addison friendship, Addex, and Maddison , so if you are a supported of any of those ships, or just an Addison fan in general, I think you'll like this. Pretty much Callie is pregnant, so Addison comes back on New Year's Eve for a consult, and confronts some old skeletons. Not very original, but hopefully entertaining.
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"I thought that you were all into big finishes, grand exits. Yet you're back in Seattle not four months after yours."
"Don't you have a twelve year old to tend to?" Addison walked by Derek in the lobby without making eye contact, but he turned around and followed persistently. She sighed, and popped a cinnamon altoid in her mouth. Christmas was six days ago, but Addison was only afraid of a few things; two of them being bad breath and the persistent ex now stalking her through the deserted hallways. She felt sorry that he had to bring in the New Year in the middle of someone's brain, but not as sorry as the brain that had to be exposed when they should be out celebrating. She should be out celebrating. But Addison Montgomery was nothing if not a good friend, and Callie needed her right now. "Are you going to keep following me around?"
Derek grabbed her by the arm and reeled her into him. Without her heels, her chest slammed into him. She prided herself in the fact it only took her a moment to recover and pull away. His brow furrowed. "You never did have a grand exit, did you?" Raising his hand, he tilted her chin to make her look him in the eye. "You didn't even say goodbye."
Her flats pivoted smoothly on the freshly waxed floors, and she was off in the other direction. "As I said, you were busy attending to a twelve year old. Which I'm assuming you should be now, too."
He scoffed. "What is it with you around me? You were the one opting for being the civilized divorced couple at first."
"Well, then we stopped talking all together, so I'm assuming we went back to default. Now that you have so suddenly taken an interest in me again, I resume the default of rather going to my scheduled vaginal exam than sticking around with you and being sentimental."
His turn to stop in his tracks. "You're here for a consult?"
Picking up the chart at the nurses station, she turned to the adjoining hallway. "You thought that I was willingly spending New Year's Eve in the same proximity as you? You thought wrong. Callie is pregnant, and I got a day off from the practice. If you want to continue to follow me into that room where your resident is in the stirrups, be my guest. But I'm pretty sure Torres minored in some form of wrestling, so it's your loss."
"Hey, you didn't let me finish." Derek put on puppy eyes. "I'm lucky that you showed up at all again. I might never have had another chance to speak to you in person."
Addison groaned. "That was the point of moving, Derek, but what?"
He gave a small smile, then said, "Like I said: You didn't have a grand exit. You didn't say goodbye to anyone. You just… left. I'm… you're right, I have my twel—Meredith," he caught himself, "to take care of, but I don't really understand why you would think I wouldn't even want to say goodbye to you." Addison opened her mouth, but he stopped her. "I don't really want to know. I don't need anything from you. I just though that, even though you would never admit it, and still won't admit it now, you still need something from me."
Addison clenched her jaw, but opened her mouth slightly in anticipation as Derek leaned closer and closer to her face. At the last minute, though, he abruptly changed direction, and kissed her forehead. Pulling away, he whispered, "I don't need a goodbye. But you need one. So goodbye, Addison. I'll miss you." Derek walked away, and Addison never saw him again.
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She abruptly turned into the room to her direct right. With her back against the inside of the door she sighed, then proceeded to greet her dark haired friend. "How are you Callie?"
"I'd squeal and jump up to hug you, but I'm in a slightly compromising position right now." Addison relaxed for the first time since her red Bug was put in park position, and remembered why she was here at all. "I'm so glad to see you."
"Hey, me too," she replied, her eyes barely coming out behind the latest article about Jaimee Lynn Spears' pregnancy. Addison laughed.
"You know, I saw her in a Hollister the other day when I went on a walk?" Addison pulled out her LA cool-card. Even she wasn't quite used to the casual celebrity sightings.
"Yeah, I used to have lunch with her twice a year," Callie responded with her rich-daddy card.
"I should have known," she mused, snapping on some gloves. "Wanna get this over with? It was at a great personal cost to come back to rainy-ville when I should be toasting in the New Year with a bottle of champagne and some male specimen, preferably by the name of Pete, wrapped around my…"
"You love me," she interrupted. "And you already agreed that you and Pete were going to remain that way— Addison, space, and Pete. Separate."
"Can't blame a girl for wanting some love at the beginning of the year," Addison groaned. "2008… you know, 8 has always been my lucky number," she mused as she begun the exam. "Relax, girl, it'll be over in a minute."
Callie chose the ignore-the-procedure pathway, and asked, "Why is 8 your lucky number?"
"Well, I associate things with colors. Like, numbers with colors, letters with colors. 'A' just seems like a red letter, you know?"
Callie cocked her eyebrow. "No."
Addison ignored her. "And my name starts with an 'A', and my hair is red, and I like the color red, and 8 I also associate with red. So this is like, the Addison year." She finished her work between Callie's legs and lowered the stirrups. "Eh?"
Callie shook her head. "No. But speaking of male specimens and people whose names start with an 'A'…"
Addison shuddered. "Oh, God no. I never did stick around to figure out what happened to him. Did he ever find Ava?"
She pursed her lips, exposing the dimples in her cheeks. "Not exactly… Well…" She sighed dramatically, and looked down. Then raising her gaze suggestively, Callie bit her lip. "You want the gossip?"
Addison spun her chair up to Callie's other end of her body. "Tell me everything."
"Well… this is all what I've heard from George, via the intern mob. He went back, but Ava wasn't there, so throughout the leave he got before the residency started, he moped around and drove off to find her. By the time he got back, you were gone." Callie went into full gossip mode. "I think that had a huge personal toll on him, because you and Ava were like his two rocks in a way. The two people he had real, personal contact with. And then all of a sudden he was by himself. I have to admit, I tortured him a little on the first day of his residency." She giggled. "I did it for you."
Addison gasped. "You did? You are such a dedicated friend."
"Well, you know me. Fairy Godmother of Friendship. Let me wave my magical wand upon you, and grant you with compassion and happiness."
"Ha. Funny. You should be a comedian if the surgeon thing doesn't work out."
"Shut up."
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To put the cherry on top of a horrific year, as soon as Addison was done gossiping about him, she walked out of Callie's room and ran into Alex Karev. "I'm getting a sense of déjà vu," she muttered.
Alex's eyes momentarily widened in shock, but it was just a flash and then surly, casual Karev came back into place. "Dr. Montgomery! You're in Seattle. That's… umm, hi."
She smiled her practiced professional smile. "Dr. Karev. Nice to see you."
"Hey, it's nice to see you, too."
Addison waited. She wasn't precisely sure what she was waiting for, but she waited anyways. She thought maybe it was something along the lines of the apology she didn't wait around to hear before; or some sort of recognition that neither of them recognized each other by their surnames anymore; or just something other than the painful professionalism that was in place right now. But one of the New Year's resolutions she was toying with was not waiting around for the inferior gender to read her mind, so she nodded in his direction, then set off.
Foolishly, like the time she had walked away from the hospital after her day from hell, she expected to hear him running up behind her, with an "I made a mistake!" any moment, but it seemed more heartbreaking now. Even the next day when Addison was driving away with a tiny notion of moving, she knew that she would come back to pack at the least, and see him again. Now all bets were off, as she mentally calculated what time she had to get to the Seattle Airport to get back home before midnight.
But maybe 2007 decided to give Addison one of the infinite gifts it withheld earlier in the year, for before she knew it, Alex was beside her, keeping stride and grabbing the chart from her hands. Staying side by side, with no eye contact, Alex said quietly, "Were you really not going to say goodbye?"
Addison, still not looking at him, raised her eyebrows ever so slightly, and responded, "Well, you didn't say goodbye either."
"Ugh. Since when are men supposed to be the ones to always make the first move?"
"Sorry, Alex, but the past two times I decided to make a move first, things didn't end too well. And you were generally the common thread. I make no more moves with you, whether it be jumping you in the hallway or saying goodbye forever," she replied curtly, but made no attempt to speed up and ditch her ex-fling.
Finally, the subtle, moving conversation got to be too much for Alex, and for the third time, the pair had one pulling the other into a side door in the hospital. Addison backed up to the beds, and looked him in the eye for the first time since the day in the church almost 3 months ago. He crossed his arms. "Don't give me that. I made a move, at the wedding."
"If you count asking the hottest chick in the room to a side stop before your bed, in the wake of being a loser with some other girl who just dumped you, 'making a move'? Maybe it's a good thing my real advances were turned down."
He groaned. "God damnit, do we have to do this? I was an asshole, I get it. I had something in front of me, I threw it away more than once, and in the process I hurt someone who I cared a lot about. But I actually wasn't planning on apologizing to you."
Frustrated, Addison ran her fingers through her hair. "What do you want, Alex?"
"I want a goodbye."
She looked up. What was it with these men all of a sudden wanting her well-wishes, when she had already made her grand exit? But looking at Alex, barely a man, standing there with sweat on his face, staying late to work on New Year's Eve when she knew it would be easy for him to pick up a warm body to share the night with, she figured that he deserved that at least. And he did look sort of cute like that, all angry and riled up. However, "I told you I'm not making any more moves."
His eyes boiled, but he inhaled deeply and grunted out; "I'll miss you, Addison."
She broke into a huge grin. "I'll miss you too, Alex." He then pulled her into a huge hug. "Sometimes you're a weird combination of good and bad—at first you were a bad person, and doctor, then you were jumping around in both areas, but I hope that you can find stability in those fields."
"Of course," he mumbled from somewhere deep in her red locks.
She went to leave, but as she opened the door, she looked over her shoulder. "Oh, one more thing, Alex?"
"Yeah?"
"Milk crates are portable, but highly unpractical. Try for a larger container someday." She smiled sweetly at his look of utter bewilderment. She left, with a sweet, "Goodbye", and never saw her intern again.
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When Mark sat down next to her in the lobby, she didn't even need to ask what he wanted. He was the only one that she had official closure with in Seattle before she left the first time, but also the one who she had the most baggage with to unravel. Their brief encounter in Joe's barely sufficed for what he deserved from her. But it appeared that Mark had changed since she left; and instead of being forthright with his wants, he just sat with her for a while, as she waited for the time to leave for the airport. They stared outside. Finally, she spoke. "I've always believed in white Christmases, and New Years." She looked over at him thoughtfully. "In Seattle, it just rains. Do you understand?"
"Yes," he said cautiously. "But it doesn't snow in Los Angeles, either."
She sighed, and rested her head on his shoulder. "Sometimes, at night, when the sun is setting in the west, over the Pacific, the light from it reflects off the water, and onto the sand, and when you squint, the white starts spiraling and spinning, and then you imagine the heat on your skin is cold, and then it's like there's a blizzard. But only at a certain time of day."
"In Manhattan, remember how we got snowed in at the Brownstone that one time on New Years? You, Derek and I had nothing in the house but leftover holiday chocolate the hospital gave us for working Christmas day that year." He stroked her hair. "I think I'm in a bit of a dream. I thought I'd never see you again."
She smiled lazily. "Maybe we'll see each other again, even after I leave. Maybe you'll have a consult when Paris Hilton wants another nose job."
He exhaled. "Maybe."
"My flight leaves in ninety minutes, and I have to be there for an interview tomorrow. We're getting a new guy at the practice, and you know how airplane security is these days."
"Yeah. Do you need a ride to the airport?"
"No." She stood up, Mark with her. She embraced him in a hug, the kind that she gave Alex, but also a gentle peck on the lips. "I think 2008 might be your year, Mark."
"You think?"
"I know," she said. "I'm amazing like that, remember?" She winked at him, and set off. "Happy New Year's, Mark…"
She never saw him again.
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Addison sat down in her highly coveted first class window seat, and tried not to ogle as 40-ish year old brunette eye-candy sat next to her. She nodded politely, and put up her magazine inconspicuously to hide her increasingly reddened face.
Halfway through the flight, he turned to her as his watch alarm went off. "Happy New Year's," he said quietly. "Where are you going?"
"Home," Addison replied. " Los Angeles. How about you?"
"Yeah, Los Angeles, too. I have this job interview at a private medical practice…"
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Fin
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Happy New Year's! Maybe you'll hear from me in a few months or so...
Violet