Eleven, a grey's anatomy fanfic

Inspired by Addison's line to Sam in the Private Practice pilot about her past. Contains mature themes.

"It's not like I look bad naked. A lot of men have enjoyed seeing me naked. A lot of men - well, not a lot. Eight - well, eleven."

When he asks again, she swallows hard and steps into the faint light. He utters a long, low whistle.

"Look at you. Archie Montgomery's little sister got hot. What do you know."

She covers her breasts with her hands, shy.

"Don't." He closes his fingers around her wrists, tugging gently. "I want to see you. You look beautiful."

She shudders a little, dizzy. The lake is black and still behind her.

"Cold?"

She nods.

"I'll warm you up."

His hands slide over her. She can't remember where her bathing suit is. He has a bottle of something, warm slick liquid running between her lips. She's all grown up now, college next year, but she hadn't realized it would be just the two of them there.

"Relax," Phil says softly. "Just relax." He rubs her back gently, then eases her down with him.

"Ow." She shifts. The grass is spiky under her bare skin. Her tongue feels thick.

He spreads out a towel. "Only the best for you," he grins, helping her lie down on her back. He laces his fingers through hers and tugs her hands up, over her head, away from her body. Then he slides lower, wrapping his mouth around one breast while his other hand cups sensitive flesh, prodding and tweaking.

It feels good. For a moment it feels good, and then it feels -

"Phil." She says his name again, louder, when he doesn't respond.

He looks up then, dragging his lips away from her skin. There's a damp red circle where his mouth was clamped. "What?"

"Can we just - can you slow down?"

"I can't." He grins at her, pulling her closer. "You're driving me crazy."

"Phil-"

He takes her hand and guides it between his legs. "See? That's all because of you."

She freezes then, because his face is blurry and lengthening, older, and she's swinging her feet in mary-janes and she can't scream because Archer's at Boy Scouts and no one's home to hear her and keep playing, you're doing a good job on the sonata - but only one of her hands is on the keys and she can't quite breathe and-

"Stop!" She yanks herself away from him, rolling to her side, wrapping her arms protectively around herself.

"What the hell?" He kneels over her, pulling at her arms. "Addie, what's the issue." There's no question mark in his tone. "Come on, cut it out. You gonna make me beg?"

"I don't want to do this. I don't!"

He stops tugging at her arms. "Really? Because you seemed to be enjoying it." His voice is cold now, and she shivers.

"Please, I'm sorry."

He shoves a hand between her thighs, one of his fingers pushing inside of her. "Feels like you like it."

She's crying, she can't help it, even though don't cry, there's nothing to cry about, you're not a little kid, are you? That's right, you're not. Don't cry, Addie, just take it again from the first bars. You're doing great. The lesson's almost over.

He yanks his fingers out of her and stands up in disgust. Before she can sit up he's grabbing his stuff, cramming it in the oversized canvas bag and slamming the door of his jeep shut with him in it.

"Fucking tease!" He yells out the window as he pulls away, brakes squealing.

She crouches in the grass, head in her hands, tears running hot between her fingers. She shudders. All her clothes are in his car. It's dark and no one is going to hear her. A sob escapes her before she can stop it. Finally she gets hold of herself. Montgomeries don't cry in public - even if they're alone. She drags her hand across her streaming eyes, sniffs inelegantly, and searches on her hands and knees for something to cover herself. She's grateful when her fingers scrape the edge of the beach towel Phil left behind. Wrapping herself in yellow and white stripes, she huddles back into the grass and tries to keep warm.

Time passes. Minutes, maybe hours. Headlights swing up the path and she shields her eyes, shivering with fear. The car stops but the voice isn't Phil's.

"Addison? Addie, what the hell?"

"Archer!" She jumps to bare feet, wincing as a twig snaps under her toes.

He doesn't say anything about the state she's in, just yanks his barn jacket off and wraps it around her. "Addie, it's cold out here."

"H-how did you know I was here?"

"Brother's intuition." He studies her face. "Are you all right? What happened?"

"Nothing." She looks down.

He puts his arm around her, leading her to the car. "I'm going to kill him, Addie."

"Archie, no."

"It's my prerogative." He turns up the heat. "You don't have to tell me anything; I'm going to kill him anyway. No one leaves my little sister at the lake."

"Archer..."

"Don't worry, Addie. He's going to pay."

"Archie, you don't have to."

"I want to." He tightens his hands on the wheel.

Phil Davidson never bothers her again.

She's different in college. She's pretty in college.

Maybe because it's Yale - Archer told her the competition there was much less fierce - or maybe it's because her braces are off and she's figured out how to make a decent French braid and it turns out tight jeans don't look silly on her after all. She's tall, not gangly. Her hair is striking, not silly. Her roommate is a blonde from Richmond who advises her to leave the first three buttons of her preppy shirts open and shows her how to wear a headband.

The offers pour in.

"I'm pre-med," she says apologetically most of the time. First year is tough: bio, chem, calculus. She wants good grades. She's a perfectionist. She wants to be a doctor more than she wants any repeats of last summer, more than she needs fingers prodding her and hot breath in her ear and the lung-crushing sensation of not being able to sit up.

"Addie, people are going to start talking," her roommate sighs.

"Talking?"

"Look, I don't care either way, okay? You can tell me. Um, are you - do you..."

"Savvy, what are you trying to ask?"

"Just, um, should you have gone to Vassar?"

Addison throws her head back and laughs. "Honestly, Sav!"

"Well, it's a reasonably question," Savvy mutters, fair skin flushing.

Addison surveys her roommate: she's curvy and blonde and she knows the guys in the dorm next door are crazy about her. Addison figures if she were - like that - she would have noticed Savvy, right? "No," she shrugs. "I like boys, I just - I don't want to go out with just anyone."

"Waiting for marriage material?"

"Definitely not." Addison shakes her head firmly. "Marriage is - I don't even want to think about marriage." Her parents have been influential role models; she figures she has years to find someone to move into a huge silent house and ignore her over cocktails.

But she's a Montgomery at heart and people will talk is enough to make her heart flutter. So she says yes to the next guy who asks her, a tall and solemn guy from New York. He has loose dark curls and heavy eyebrows; he's in her calculus class and he follows the professor with eager eyes, like he likes it. They go to a screening, a Woody Allen movie she's seen before, and when he takes her hand she folds her fingers shyly through his. It feels natural, almost.

"Can I see your room?" she asks, as if it's something she says all the time.

His room looks like hers, except for the plain blue flannel comforter and the lack of girlish touches. The dark wood is the same, the electric typewriter on the desk. Stacks of books everywhere and unruly piles of typing paper. She picks up a bottle of white-out, sets it down. He offers her a beer and she chugs it nervously, hoping it won't make her belch. He slides a cassette into his tape player and she takes the cue to relax, sitting on his bed. He settles next to her, kissing her gently, and she tries to enjoy it even as his hands slide up and down her sides and lis leg presses close to hers.

Her mouth opens and closes but no words come out. "Do you want to?" he asks and she nods jerkily, feeling like a marionette. The room feels overly warm and it seems only natural to let him peel the oversized blue shirt off her shoulders, to kiss his way across her neck and slide her jeans with their complicated series of zippers down the length of her legs. He undresses like a boy, hands flying, done in three seconds, and when he presses himself against her she swallows a protest. They're on their sides so she feels like she can breathe, at least. He cups the back of her head and sweeps his tongue through her mouth. Then his fingers are on her bra and the fabric slides away. His mouth on her breasts is a reminder of things she doesn't want to think about and she pushes gently at his head. Misinterpreting, he lowers his mouth and kisses her stomach, rubbing her hipbones and hooking his fingers into the waistband of her panties.

She tries to relax, the flannel comforter damp under her back. She's naked and he's naked and he stares at her for a second before settling next to her again.

"Wow," he murmurs.

"What?" She turns onto her side, self-conscious.

"Sorry, just - well, you're just really pretty, that's all."

She flushes. "Thanks. You're - "

"I hope I'm not pretty," he interrupts her and she laughs, the tension broken.

He rolls on top of her and her legs part naturally. He kisses her deeply and she moves her head to the side, trying to breathe.

"You okay?"

She nods.

He kisses her again, one of his hands sliding up her side to touch her, stroking gently. She shifts underneath him, feeling slightly suffocated.

"Am I squashing you?"

She shakes her head.

He lowers his mouth to her breasts, sucking and tugging, while one hand finds its way between her thighs. His fingers strum and rub and her hips twitch. There's a cramp behind her thigh. He's moaning in her ear and touching her and his lips are wet on her skin and it's dark and quiet at the lake, the only lights come from the headlights and he's heavy on top of her she can't breathe and her parents aren't home he's supposed to be teaching her piano and the metronome is loud, louder than her heartbeat when his fingers touch her, hurt her, and then the car's pulling away - fucking tease!

"No!" The scream tears from her throat and she sits up, heart pounding.

"What?" He jumps away from her. Andy, hair a mess, face flushed. "What happened? Addison?"

"Please stop." She's leaning over, panting for breath, and to her embarrassment she feels tears forming in her eyes.

He swings his legs over the side of the bed, then disappears from her vision. A moment later he's back with a terrycloth robe. It's big and dark green, masculine. Her teeth are chattering as he wraps it around her.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry."

He shakes his head. "Water," he says suddenly, and disappears again. He comes back with a plastic cup and she sips the warm, slightly metallic tasting liquid until she's calm enough to stand up and get dressed.

"I'll walk you home." He's pulling on boxers, running his fingers through his unruly hair. She's never really liked curly hair, but on him, looking at her compassionately, it's suddenly attractive.

"I - no, it's fine. It's still early."

"I'm sorry," she mumbles again at the door.

"I'm sorry I upset you," he says.

"No, it wasn't you, I -"

But Montgomeries don't talk about things like that, so she doesn't say anything else.

She's no English major and she doesn't really have a way with words, but as it turns out, saying no that time makes saying yes sound more appealing.

She doesn't see Andy Silver again - neither of them calls, and the one time she catches a glimpse of his curly head in the dining hall at commons, she ducks behind the salad station until he's finished bussing his plate.

The next guy who asks her out is named Todd Small, and she throws a highlighter at Savvy when she suggests that such a short and descriptive name could prove to be an issue. "He has big hands," Addison protests and Savvy rolls her eyes.

The truth is that she thinks he might be the one. The one to help her get it over with, that is. She's two weeks past eighteen and close-but-not-quite isn't enough anymore. She doesn't want to have hangups. She's finally something close to pretty - not the gawky bundle of overlong limbs and braces who got no attention in high school - and it seems a shame to let it go to waste.

Plus, she's curious.

She's a scientist and she likes to know how things work. Todd's a history major and he wants to have dinner first. She accepts the compromise and drinks three martinis at dinner to easy the journey. They stumble back to his dorm, giggling as they climb the stairs. He presses her against his door, kisses her neck, lets her feel his excitement swelling against her.

As it turns out, his name is accurate and she's quite frankly relieved. He turns his back politely while she undresses and it all starts to have the feel of a cordial transaction. He's college-boy considerate, swiping the dirty laundry off his bed before setting her down on it and hanging the traditional red sock on his doorknob so his roommate won't burst in on them.

Addison covers her face with a pillow as he crawls down her naked body, not to muffle sounds of pleasure - while it's not exactly unpleasant, it's really no more arousing than the curious snuffles of an overly friendly dog. It's more to hide her embarrassment, because being naked is one thing, but having his face so close to -

"Was that it?" His head pops up. He looks eager and the cowlick in his light-brown hair is sort of appealing.

She removes the pillow from her face. "Huh?"

"Did you - you know -" he trails off.

"Oh!" She pastes on a smile. "Yeah. Yes, I did."

"Good." He grins back at her, wiping his hand across his mouth. "So, are you, um-"

His hesitant fingers probe between her legs again and she forces herself to relax. So he's clumsy and not particularly gifted. He's nice enough. "Yeah. I'm ready."

She watches him fumble with a condom, thinking that even if she had come she'd be rather turns off now to see this - it's all rather repulsive. There's too much light in here; he has one of those bendy desk lamps and she wanted to turn it off but now doesn't seem like the time. She shifts on her back - his sheets are stiff and smell faintly of bleach and Gillette and some unidentifiable boy smell. Her Calvins and white angora sweater are flung over the back of the rubber-and-wood desk chair. She's not quite sure where her panties are.

He hovers over her and she spreads her legs further, trying to accommodate him. She's hit with a sudden bout of giggling and needs to cover her face again, because all she can think of is her frustration trying to get the car packed, shoving the too-big suitcases into the limited trunk space of the car her parents bought her in lieu of actually taking her to school. She'd shoved and cursed in a most unladylike fashion before she managed to-

"Ow!"

"Sorry!" He looks panicked and suddenly much younger than his age. "Did I hurt you? Shit, I'm sorry. I figured you did this before, and I -"

"No, no, it's okay. Keep going." She winces, smiles again. She wants to get this over with.

"Do you, um, do you want to stop?"

Bless him for asking; it's somehow more of a turn-on than any of the groping that led to this. "No, it's okay. Don't stop. Just - go slow."

"Got it." He nods determinedly. She flexes her hips, breathes deeply and waits for it to be over.

He's panting above her. "So - good -" he mutters.

"Yeah," she echoes as his hips move back and forth, pushing the weight inside of her higher and lower and - it's a curious feeling. It's not good, but it's not bad either. It's hot - temperature-wise, that is, both of them sweating and her hair's in her eyes. It's a humid New England autumn, with all the frizz that implies, and she's just starting to feel guilty for thinking about the texture of her hair while he's sighing and wriggling above her when he yells out a curse and collapses on top of her.

In the end analysis, she's glad he's skinny because it takes a few minutes for her to start feeling crushed, and she prods at his ribcage. "Um, Todd?"

"Oh! Sorry." And "Sorry!" he says again when he rolls onto her hair as he eases off of her.

"That was amazing," he sighs finally, flopping onto his back.

"Amazing," she echoes, stretching her sore calves and swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

"Where are you going?" He looks almost hurt and she thinks whoever taught him his polite manners probably suggested that girls like to cuddle afterwards.

"I have a bio quiz tomorrow morning. Sorry."

"Oh. Okay." He stands, crosses his hands self-consciously over the limp flesh between his thighs. "Um. We could do this again, sometime."

"Sure, I'd love to." She smiles the way she was taught in deb classes. "I'm, uh - I'll see you in Commons, right?"

"Right." He steps into his boxers and she dresses with her back to him, cursing Brooke Shields for the amount of time it takes to tug the skintight denim over her legs.

"Thanks," she tells him as she slips out the door.

She runs across campus on shaking legs. It was ... harder than she thought it would be. No pun intended, she reminds herself. She's tired. And she never did find her panties, but maybe that's a good thing - the rough seam of her Calvins, as she strides swiftly across the green, brings her more pleasure than anything Todd did.

She's learned a lot in college.

She knows know that the biology curve is more brutal than the one in calculus, that laundry is a lot more complicated than her family's maids made it seem, and that she can live for days on packaged noodles and a hotpot as long as she washes them down with vodka.

She's also learned that having a roommate can be tough, having a roommate who's your friend can be wonderful, and having a roommate who's your friend who has a serious boyfriend now brings its own sets of issues.

But she's done it. It's over. She's not a virgin or an outcast or a tease. She's just Addison - "Miss Montgomery" in class - and now that Savvy has a boyfriend she figures it's time she did too. It's just a matter of flexing her newfound power: smiling a little longer at one of the boys who wait around to walk her home from the library after a late-night problem set. Twirling the end of her braid between two fingers while she flips through her scrupulously color-coded notecards.

Still - all that time hating her hometown and now it's a guy from Greenwich linking her arm with his to walk to Commons, carrying her books from science lab and passing her embarrassingly sappy notes in the library. She makes him wait two months, because she can, and then she invites him to her parents' country house when she knows they're both in Europe.

They swim all afternoon in the heated pool, and she teases him, slithering around him - she's a fast swimmer - splashing up behind him and climbing onto his back. He's patient, amused, running his hands over her bare legs and, finally, in front of a fire he lights while she drinks straight gin from her parents' impressive collection, she lets him slide her red one-piece down the length of her body.

He's more experienced than the other boys: not a man yet maybe, but not a kid either. He coaxes a few moans - not all of them faked - and while he rubs against her with obvious intent, the words he murmurs to her are kind. The carpet is soft and the fire is crackling. It gets cold up here at night and the windows are cracked to let fresh cool air swirl through the room.

"Do you want me to-" he gestures south of her bellybutton and she shakes her head.

"It's okay."

His fingers are more practiced than the others, but she has to reposition them a few times and finally helps him, arching her back, her hips rising off the carpet, her own hand doing most of the work. She's limp and satisfied when he pushes into her, and she wraps her arms around him, letting him do the work this time.

It's not quite good, but it's getting there.

Not even worth mentioning.

The towel slides through her boneless fingers to crumple on the floor and they scream at the same time.

(Later she'll tell him it was a girlie scream and he'll tell her it's a good thing they swore never to admit anything to Savvy or she'd never let him live it down.)

"Weiss!" she yelps as he turns and buries his face in the rumpled covers.

"Sorry!" He fumbles on the bed and, without looking, throws something in her direction. A shirt. Pink, so it's probably Savvy's. She jerks it over her head, grabs a pair of panties from her shelf and hop-skips into them, a second away from falling. The room is so flooded with sunlight that dust particles are visible on every surface.

So much for her peaceful roommate-less morning.

"Okay." She takes a deep breath, running her fingers through her wet hair. "Now. What the hell are you doing here?"

"Savvy said-"

"You can turn around now," she sighs.

"Oh." He sits up warily, then squeezes his eyes shut again.

"What?"

"Addie, your ... legs."

She looks down. "What about them?"

"They're still showing."

"They're just legs!" Frustrated, she kicks one of them in his direction.

With his eyes still tightly shut, he shakes his head. "Trust me on this one, those are not 'just legs'."

She rolls her eyes, wriggles into the first pair of sweats she sees and folds her arms crossly over her chest. "Fine."

He peeks between his fingers before slowly lowering his hand. "That's better. Anyway, I was going to surprise Savvy. She said you were leaving last night - skiing or something. I didn't think you'd be here."

Oh. "I, uh, forgot to tell Sav I wasn't going."

What she hadn't forgotten to do was get her hopes up about the trip - but that was another story altogether.

"So you're going to stay here for the whole break?"

"I guess." She shrugs, playing with the hem of Savvy's pink shirt.

"You should come out to the lake with us."

"That's silly. And anyway, Savvy-"

"...will just be mad she didn't get to invite you first." He smiles at her and she looks down at her bare feet, suddenly shy.

"Okay. Well, you know, maybe for a day or two. I'll drive myself. You may want time alone."

"There are at least five bedrooms in that monstrosity," he points out. "Just -"

She nods encouragingly.

"Let's maybe not tell Savvy about ... the towel thing."

"Agreed." Addison pauses. "Wait, was it so traumatic for you? I mean, I don't think I look that bad in the mornings."

"Definitely not bad." He shakes his head. "But you're no Savvy either."

She throws a pillow at him.

At the lake house, while Weiss is stoking the grill, she pulls Savvy aside to tell her she really likes him. "What brought this on?" Savvy asks.

Addison shrugs. "I just think he's a good guy."

Savvy giggles, full of margaritas and sunshine, new freckles on her shoulders. "Yeah, me too."

"I like to think of sex as a checklist," Savvy offers, over cheap beer at a townie dive.

Their friend Laurel giggles.

"You've been with Weiss for two years!" Addison protests.

"Well, yeah, but we've done all kinds of stuff."

"Please do not tell us," Laurel laughs and Addison nods in agreement, although secretly she's a little curious.

"You know what I always thought I would do, though - well, it's such a cliche - but I kind of wish I'd given a professor a try."

"Savvy!" Laurel and Addison exclaim in tandem.

"Too bad I'm taken." Savvy sighs into her beer.

Addison's not taken. She finished with Chip last summer; in the end, he was a shorter commitment than organic chemistry. She told him she wanted to focus on the MCATs; she told Savvy he bored her; privately, she admitted that his potential appeal as a parentally-approved mate turned her off. At any rate, now she's single.

And what's the point of being single if you can't experiment?

Savvy was right about a lot of things: which pizza joint was best, how much cheap tequila turned a fun night into a vomit-fest, how to spray-tease hair, and the fun of woman-on-top. So she's probably right about this too.

Professors, though. A minefield she hadn't really thought about - her father's a professor of medicine, and she professes to hate cliches, so she doesn't even look twice at anyone in the sciences. No biology, no chemistry, not even the orgo TA with the posh English accent and ridiculously long eyelashes. Nothing a therapist would enjoy. Instead, she works her way patiently through the humanities requirements until one rainy day she stops at her Modern Poetry professor's office hours, watches his gaze fall nakedly on her rain-damp wrists and decides that today's the day.

He's careful with her, treats her like she might break. He exclaims over her, the smoothness of her skin and the flexibility of her legs. She's twenty years younger than his ex-wife, so the skin thing makes sense, and she's started doing aerobics with Savvy every Thursday and Sunday so the flexibility is kind of a given too.

He knows what he's doing and for the first time she doesn't fake it. She straddles his lap in his office chair and feels like she's finally learning. What's that saying? In like a lion, out like a lamb? But Addison Montgomery isn't quite ready for her Yale epitaph to read in like a virgin, out like a vixen. Instead she lets the extra swing in her step catch the eye of a boy or two her age.

And when Sutton Kelleher finally winks at her in Biochem she politely tells Professor Gordon-Steward that she's not going to be visiting his office hours anymore.

"You're much more calculating than I thought," is all he says.

She makes a face. She's a lot of things. And why shouldn't she get to use people sometimes too? Maybe it was just her turn. Check the box, complete the syllabus.

"I hope this won't affect my grade," she says finally, tugging her sweater back over her head and shrugging into her corduroy blazer.

He arches a brow at her. "Your punctuation is borderline excessive."

"I'll work on it."

She slings her bag over shoulder, feeling lighter than she has for weeks. Maybe Savvy was right. Maybe sex is the cure for everything.

He's still staring at her.

"What?" She brushes at her skirt, hoping it's not on inside out.

"I just hope you find someone who's up to the task of you," he says.

She shrugs, closing his office door firmly behind her. It's a silly thing to say, isn't it? She's not a problem set, not a homework assignment or a pop quiz.

Then what are you? a part of her wonders, but she ignores it.

They all look the same.

There's an army of them at the country club, in pastel-colored polo shirts and neatly pressed khakis and perfectly coiffed hair. She's been home from college less than a month and she's already bored. One more dinner dance or lobster grill and she's going to scream.

Missy Lowell and Hadley Cabot, who were absolute bitches to her in high school, didn't seem happy to see her back from Yale with an actually flattering hairstyle and willing to show off much better legs than they had. In a new bathing suit her mother's secretary gave her as a welcome home present - two pieces, far skimpier than anything she would have bought herself - she relishes her new power poolside and ignores the jealous stares.

They all look the same, but she picks Sterling because she knows Missy likes him.

He drives her home in his open-top car and the warm breeze in her hair fills her with lust, empowering her to rest a hand on his leg where his shorts are riding up. He's sun-browned, the coarse hairs turned a summery gold. Her hand drifts higher almost of its own accord. He feels warm and alive under her hand, throbbing like a heartbeat.

"Christ, Addison, I'm going to have an accident if you keep that up."

"Want me to take the wheel?"

"I don't mean a car accident."

She giggles and lets him push her hand away. Who is this fearless girl, and is this why gin is such an excellent drink? Four years away from home, sneaking kisses and more in the library stacks and against the ivy-covered stone dormitories. Now she's back.

"Are we, uh, going inside?" He looks doubtful. It's almost cute. She grabs his hand and drags him to the gazebo. No one's home. No one's ever home. Plus, it's dark.

He blinks uncertainly at her arguments so she makes up his mind for him. Looking him right in the eyes, she unfastened her bikini top and lets it fall to the ground. His gaze locks on her breasts and he reaches out, zombie like. She giggles as he tugs down the bottom of her suit. Two scraps of blue fabric. They look small on the wide wooden slats of the floor. She reaches for him but he takes her shoulders, holds her away for a brief second.

"God, you're gorgeous."

"Oh, please."

She's not a kid anymore and she knows it's what they all say. But his eyes are heavy-lidded with desire, so she yanks at his shorts, pushing him to the ground and straddling him. He looks surprised at her stance and she giggles again. This is fun. His hands cover her breasts above him and he groans, arching his back. She rocks against him, starting to enjoy herself as much as he is when she hears a yell.

"What the hell?"

"Archer!"

Yelping, she tumbles off Sterling, grabbing for her clothes. He throws her his shirt and she struggles into it, scrambling to her feet. She finds her blue bikini bottoms and tugs them over her legs. Archer is standing with his back to them, his taut shoulders radiating anger.

She strides in front of him and jabs him on the arm. "Archer, do you mind?"

"Do I mind? Are you crazy?" He turns to Sterling. "Hewitt, you'd better run before I change my mind."

"Right," he gulps. "Uh. Sorry, Archer." He leaves, in shorts and nothing else, holding his topisders in one hand.

"What are you apologizing to him for?" Addison calls after his retreating bare back. "I'm not his property!"

She turns to her brother, who is still scowling. "I'm breaking up your next date, Archie."

"Call that a date?"

"You're one to talk! You're such a hypocrite!"

He switches tactics. "In the gazebo, Addie, really! What would you have done if Bizzy saw you?"

"Died of shock that she was actually home?"

"And Sterling Hewitt." He shakes his head. "I've known that mouth-breather since preschool. He used to eat paste. He's off limits."

"You've slept with my friends!" she hisses.

"That's different."

"Why is it different?"

"Because you're my baby sister."

"I'm twenty-two, Archer."

"Like I said." He glares at her, then sighs. "Honestly, Addie, you can do a lot better than Sterling."

She shrugs. She's not looking for a husband.

"Guys around here are jerks, Addison. And yes, I'm including myself."

"So what am I supposed to do? Be celibate forever?"

"I like that plan."

She rolls her eyes, pushing her still-damp hair away from her face.

"You can just wait for medical school, sis. You're leaving in three weeks anyway. All those nerdy, horny kids squeezed together in a lab."

"You're going to be there too!"

"I'm practically finished." He puffs up his chest. "I'm not going to bother interfering with a bunch of first years. Go ahead and have all the geeky scientist sex you want at Columbia and I won't get on your case."

"Really?"

"If anyone hurts you, they'll still have me to answer to."

"I should hope so."

Chemical poisoning is a risk in any lab, but no one was expecting a spill this time.

They're ushered into the decontamination room, silent with fear, strip down to nothing and jump into the showers. There's a low wall separating her stall from her next-door-neighbor's. Gulping, she moves closer to the ledge. "That was so cr-"

She shrieks as the occupant of the next stall turns around.

Cupping both hands over her bare breasts, she ducks as low as she can, until only her eyes are visible over the wall.

I am going to die, she realizes. I am going to die of embarrassment instead of a lab accident. And embarrassment is so much worse.

Of course it can't be Naomi in the next stall, or Lucy or anyone else remotely okay. No, it's her - whatever you call it. It's him. Two dates down. Three kisses. And the last one was - and okay, if she's honest with herself, maybe she'd like him to be her boyfriend. So she ducks even lower, wondering if she can fit all five-foot-ten-inches of herself down the drain.

She's toweled off and dressed in scrubs two sizes too big for her when she bumps into him at the hand dryers.

"That was a close call, huh?" His voice is light, amused.

She ignores him, heat creeping into her cheeks.

"Oh, come on, a little embarrassment is better than chemical burns, isn't it?"

"I'm not so sure about that." She's blushing and even with tangled wet hair hanging down on either side of her face she's sure he noticed.

"Addison." His eyes are twinkling. He looks like he's suppressing laughter. The nerve!

She moans, covering her face with her hands. "Oh, my god. This is so not how this is supposed to go."

"How what is supposed to go?"

"We've had two dates, Derek! Just two dates! The naked part," she lowers her voice to a hiss, "is not supposed to happen yet."

"Oh." He nods, lips curving up in a smile. "So you already planned out the naked part, then?"

"No, that's not what I-" she breaks off, realizing he's teasing her. "Derek!"

"Besides." He grins at her. "It's not like you look bad naked."

"Oh." She's pretty sure she's blushing to the roots of her hair at this point. And thanks to an unlucky chemical spill, her not-boyfriend-just-date-or-whatever already knows that she blushes other places too. This day could not get more humiliating, so she figures - what the hell. Standing up a little straighter, letting the baggy scrub top fall loose around her body, she looks him in the eye. "Just - not bad? Is that all?"

His eyes are doing that sparkling thing again. "Ask me again after date three."

"Derek!"

He just grins. "Dinner tomorrow night? After lab, around nine?"

She folds her arms, scowling. She could say no, but - there's something about those blue eyes. They're very soft, looking at her. "Yeah, okay."

"Great. See you then. Maybe not as much of you as I saw today, but-"

"Go before I change my mind!" She points a finger at him warningly and he just smiles wider.

"I like it when you point at me," she hears him murmur as he walks away.

After fifteen years of the same man, novelty is two parts terror to one part excitement.

Make that two-to-one in favor of excitement, because he's naked and he's standing in front of her and the physical evidence is undeniably telling her that he wants her. That he notices her. That he sees her.

He doesn't crowd her. Doesn't even touch her as the soft t-shirt skims over her head and, moments later, the silk scraps of her panties join it. She half-turns away from him in the dim light but when he whispers her name, something in his voice makes her turn back. She stands in front of him, her arms looped over her chest.

"You're beautiful," he says quietly. It sounds different when he says it, but-

"I'm old."

She feels old sometimes, a hundred years old. Withering and forgotten. Her husband doesn't notice her anymore.

"Not old." He strokes her cheek lightly with the back of his fingers. "Perfect."

He waits quietly until she drops her arms from her chest and loops them around his neck. Only then do his arms circle her waist. "Perfect," he repeats softly, lips brushing over her ear. Electricity crackles through her. She feels like she's been sleeping for months, a winter-warm bear huddled in a cave, suddenly waking up to spring.

Then she curses herself for thinking something so ridiculous, so cliched. For being so silly, letting herself - a married woman who'll be forty next year - be swept off her feet.

But then she is off her feet, her legs wrapped around his waist, and he's lowering her into soft flannel. Cocooned in the sheets, in his arms, his fingers burn against involuntary shudders.

It's different.

It's not Derek, and everything is different.

It was good with Derek. When he was there, when he cared, it was good. He was a kind, considerate lover. Thoughtful. He was conscious of her pleasure, teased her with gentle pressure and whispered loving words in her ear as he reached his own peak. He never pushed. He liked to cuddle.

It's different with Mark.

Where Derek always let her recover after he'd pushed her to the brink, Mark sinks lips and tongue further into her until she thinks she'll explode, pinpricks of light behind her eyes and too far gone to control the sounds that escape her. Where Derek listened for any signals that his touch was too much, Mark bats gently at her hand when it covers his and works his fingers faster instead, until she's thrown over yet another cliff she wasn't expecting. She trusted Derek to respect her boundaries; as she screams wordlessly into the empty house she realizes the difference: she trusts Mark to surpass them.

She's aching for him - not begging, Montgomeries don't beg, but the absence of him inside has grown to a physical ache by the time he poises above her, both their bodies glistening with sweat and the scent over her overpowering on his lips. She's not sure she can take any more but when his hand slips between them she's suddenly dizzy with need again. His touch is explosive and he buries his face in her neck, panting his release.

It's a long time before either one of them moves. She's the first to speak. She's trailing the tips of her fingers along the back of his neck, enjoying the short hairs and the feel of the perspiration-soaked skin.

"I just realized something," she says.

"Hm?" He doesn't lift his head, but runs his fingers gently through her damp hair, brushing it off her cheeks.

"You're the tenth guy to see me naked."

"You're counting?" He lifts his head then so she can see his face, and he's smirking, his sweat-beaded brow crinkling. "Is that what we're doing now? Because I don't-"

"You don't have to tell me your number, Mark." She sighs. "I'm sure it's probably higher than mathematics can express at this point. I was just saying."

"Well." He moves within her again and she feels the spark of him, starting to come alive once more.

"God, Mark. You're not-" But apparently he is serious. She arches underneath him, melting, feeling utterly surrounded. Warm. "Ten's a good number, I think," she says, gasping as he increases his speed.

"Yeah," he murmurs above her, the movement of his hips stealing the words from her mouth.

Tenth and last - that's what she wants to whisper. She doesn't get a chance. The door swings open and her world comes crashing down.

She thought she was old then, but she wasn't.

Now she's old.

The thing is, there's something older than 39 and cheating on your husband with his best friend. It's 39 and alone in a hostile city without the friends who knew you in college or the furniture your newlywed self painstakingly selected. It's 39 and divorced and watching your husband and his junior-high mistress make eyes at each other It's being ten yards away when the last stake is driven through your marriage and not being able to complain about it, because you started it and you deserve everything you get. You're the cheater. You're the whore. You're the bitch no one wants to work for. That's what old is.

And this, she thinks as his back hits the wall of the on-call room and his hands - his unlined, youthful, intern hands rip off her open lab coat and seize the lapels of her blouse - this is what new is. New is the bare chest of the student who threatened her career; new is the strength in his arms and he swings her around and presses her against the same wall where she yanked his scrub top over his head. He hikes up her skirt, rips her panties aside with practiced ease; her legs circle his waist almost of their own accord. She pushes aside his fingers as they fuss with flesh aching for a different kind of touch.

"Just do it," she whispers, and a groan escapes her at the contact.

Pushing. It's what they do. He pushed her and she pushed back and your ass is mine until I say otherwise and she pushed him into the on-call room and now he's pushing into her and she's backed into a wall - quite literally. He fills her, body pinned to the wall, and the expression on his face is such pure pleasure that she almost laughs - then cries out instead when he thrusts with expert aim.

Oh, he is definitely not new at this.

He grins at her with clear enjoyment, pulling back for a moment to look at her, hefting the weight of one breast in his palm, rolling a nipple between his surgeon's fingers. She hadn't worn a bra today. Had left it hanging in her locker.

I'm not new at this either, she reminds herself and lets him nip at the sensitive skin under her ear. Let him mark her if he wants - it's not like anyone's looking.

She tightens her muscles around him and he makes an animal sound into her neck. "Jesus, you're-" he pulls back. "You're killing me."

She smirks at him, using all her self control not to moan at his expression. "Well, I was under the impression you thought I was a bitch."

"Who says I don't?" That smirk, the growl in his voice as he hoists her higher, thrusting into her with the vigor of a guy riding out the end of his sexual peak.

She dips her head, sinks her teeth into the salty flesh where neck meets shoulder and he yelps. "A bitch with sharp teeth?" she slurs and his lips capture hers. The rough kiss pushes her neck back, her skull bumping the plaster wall.

"Sorry," he pants into her mouth, pulling back, her lower lip caught between his teeth. She hisses, somewhere between pleasure and pain, and the hand he slips between their writhing bodies overwhelms her. She screws her eyes shut, heels digging into the back of his thighs, and comes apart.

"Jesus," he mutters into her hair as she clenches around him and a second later he's driving her once more into the wall, her trembling arms falling limp from around his neck, his sweat-damp chest the only thing holding her up. She's a quivering mess when he sets her down, but one benefit of being old is remembering how to put herself back together. Fast.

They stumble past each other in the hall, his hands low on her hips as he swings her away, not the way a student should touch a teacher.

(You would know, Addie)

It's new and he's new and maybe new is what he needs. But she's sitting in front of him, fresh from a shaky confrontation with her past, when she realizes he doesn't want her in his future.

"No offense," he mutters, most of his concentration on his notecards, not on her -

(You would recognize that, wouldn't you, Addie?)

"-today was awesome."

Awesome.

She stammers understanding and hoists herself to her feet, smoothing her skirt over flesh he saw naked just hours before. She walks slowly out the doors and down the path. This hospital, this city, this life. It's unfamiliar, still. The sharp edges of it hurt, like new shoes she can't quite break in. Her heels tap the pavement as she leaves him behind.

Eleven down, she thinks.

Eleven down and ... no idea what's coming next.

Reviews are warmly welcomed.