Title: dreams, fears, and the knowledge of things (1/1)

Pairing: Mark/Addison (one sided), Mark/Derek friendship

Summary: Mark doesn't dream that she'll pick him over Derek. He dreams that it will be simple.

Spoilers: this is set pre-affair in NYC.

Author's note: I have no idea where this came from. And I don't normally like writing in first person POV, but for some reason, I got up and this came out. The friendship between the New York kids fascinates me, and it's criminal that Shonda hasn't explored it more, especially because Mark had such potential to be awesome, so I guess I had to take a stab at it. As usual, this is unbeta'd. The lack of quotation marks is on purpose, but apologies in advance for all other grammar mistakes. I'm still trying to find a beta.

The dream was always running ahead of me. To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle.
-Anais Nin

I'm beginning to dream again. I don't usually dream but Kathleen says that everyone dreams; it's just that most people forget after they wake up. Maybe she's right, but I wish there was a way I could forget this dream.

I'm in an old church. For some reason the pews aren't there and lights are off, but it's definitely a church because there's an altar on one end of the room and there are candles to the side. The cherry color of the walls' worn panels casts a warm darkness over the room, and you can barely make out the painted fresco on the ceiling. It's midday though, so despite the darkness, sunlight filters through the windows in tight, yellow shafts giving an ethereal feel to the must and dust of the room.

It must be their wedding day, because the whiteness of her dress blinds me as she stands before a long procession of people greeting her and congratulating her. After the procession makes its way through the door and all the people have left, she hangs back and turns to me in the empty room. The light catches in her hair and makes her seem all the more perfect, if that's possible, and I bask in her beauty in the drops of silence.

I know, she says, looking at me straight in the eye.

A deep chill runs through me. Time stands still, and I have a sinking feeling in my gut. She knows. But I still tried to play it off.

You know about what, I ask, all smiles and pretending to be confused.

I know how you feel about me, she says quietly but resolutely. I know you love me.

The smile freezes. And still I pretend.

Of course I love you, I say. You're one of my best friends.

I know you're in love with me, she presses on. I've known for a long time.

She sidles up to me before she flops onto a bed that has mysteriously appeared. My heart is in my throat, and I'm paralyzed with fear. Tentatively, I join her on the bed but instead of looking at her, as she stretches out on her stomach, I lie on my back next to her and stare at the cracked painting above us instead.

So what do you want to do about it? she finally asks.

I don't know, I say after a long pause. Do you want me to do anything about it? I ask.

A beat follows before she starts giggling a bit, and before we know it, we both start laughing about the ridiculousness of it all. Because I know she doesn't love me. She can't love me even if she does, and yet I still love her. And surprisingly, we're both okay. She makes a face, and I playfully hit her with my pillow. And god, I love the way her hair falls over her face, and the way her eyes smile.

She lets me kiss her on the cheek and we grin at each other but the moment is lost because Derek appears in the doorway. His appearance catches me so off guard, I fall out of the bed. Derek isn't usually in my dreams. I wonder what that means.

What the hell are you doing? he asks us, anger and fire in his eyes.

She and I glance at each other, before she calmly says, Mark is in love with me.

His face is unreadable, as I climb back into the bed. With a sigh, I look him in the eye and steadily tell him, It's the truth.

He stands there for a tense moment, until finally he relaxes into a smirk and says, Oh is that all?

She moves and at first I think she might go and leave, but instead she copies my position and flips onto her back. She shifts over, closer to me, to make room for Derek who climbs into the bed next to us and we just quietly be. She doesn't love me the way I do, but she does love me in a very deep way. They both do, and I love them back just as much. So it's enough that I'm not doing anything beyond what one of her close friends would do and it's enough that he's not freaking out about the fact that I'm in love with her. She can still let me love her and not have it be an issue because in the silence of the moment, there is an unspoken promise, an understanding that I won't become bitter about the fact that she can't give me what I want.

The three of us stare at the painted angels smiling sweetly from above. It should be absurd that we're in a church on a bed and she's lying between us in her wedding dress. Then again, anything can be normal in your dreams.

I wake up with a start, and the lingering wisps of my dream ghost my thoughts and stay with me. I am grateful that it was all just a dream. I'm glad that this is all in my head and that neither Derek nor Addison knows how stupidly in love I am with my best friend's wife.

But at the same time, part of me wishes it wasn't all a dream. My heart is so full with these feelings I don't understand, and the problems Derek and Addison are having are not helping. Derek is becoming more and more absent, and without him to distract her, I'm beginning to think that she's figured just how much I really love her. In fact, I'm almost certain she knows, and she's just not saying anything, which is fine, but we can't keep this up forever. I'm growing tired of this dance, this looking but not seeing, hearing but not listening, knowing, but not acknowledging- and eventually this will all come to a head. Either I'll do something stupid, or she will break, and Derek….oh, Derek.

In the back corner of my mind, I want the dream to become a reality, because I know this will be messy and complicated and when the day comes, I fear in the end I'll lose them both.

I shut my eyes against that thought and dwell in denial. When I fall back to sleep, I don't dream that she will pick me over him or that she'll become miserable for staying with Derek. Instead I cling to the dream that things can be that simple and we can still be us.

We are DerekMarkAddison forever and nothing, not even this, can touch us.

For now, it seems, that is enough and I believe.

finis