There's Your Trouble, a grey's anatomy fanfic

Okay, so I'm pretty sure I'm the queen of writing without being productive. Because I had a day off, and did I write any of my chapter stories? Of course not! Clearly, I would write a oneshot that I would dedicate to Kate811 and LGCoffeeAddict for being fabulously amazing and keeping the dream alive. (Also, you should know that I'm being sneaky. The fact that it all starts at 3:45 is a shout-out to the story of Kate's that gave me this idea in the first place.)

This is inspired by "There's Your Trouble" by the Dixie Chicks. I kind of actually just really wanted to have Addison sing the song, since it fits so perfectly, but I figured that this isn't Grey's Anatomy: The Musical (although, THERE'S an idea...) and people who aren't me don't generally burst out into song.

I own nothing.

Stupid construction workers.

Stupid neighbors who decide to remodel.

Stupid construction workers.

These are Addison's groggy thoughts as she shoves her head under a pillow in hopes of muffling the sound or suffocating herself. At this point, she doesn't have really have a preference.

The banging is quieter, but it's not gone. She groans as she flings the covers off and opens her eyes. It's still dark outside! Ungodly heathens.

Stupid construction workers, she thinks again. Deciding to start work at… three forty five in the morning?

It's three forty-five in the morning?

No one's that married to their job. Except maybe Cristina Yang. But she's not a construction worker, so there's really no chance of her looking out her window to see an Asian woman beating the crap out of a nail.

She frowns. Three forty-freaking-five in the morning. And why the hell won't that infernal banging stop?

The doorbell rings. Because it was someone knocking, that's why.

Seriously? Who calls at three forty-freaking-five in the morning? Who's that cruel?

Curious, she peeks around the blinds.

Oh.

Well.

Yes, he would be cruel enough to drag her out of a (if not entirely blissful) sound sleep.

Nothing that man could possibly do now would surprise her. He could start trying to break into her house and it wouldn't surprise her. Hell, he could run away with everything vaguely valuable then sell it on eBay and she would expect it. It's not like he hasn't already thrown her heart into the garbage disposal.

Alex Karev is on her doorstep. At three forty-freaking-five in the morning.

"What?" she scowls as she yanks open the door.

He looks stunned. Maybe he wasn't expecting her to open the door. But that wouldn't explain why he's banging on her door. "I thought maybe you were sleeping," he says after a moment.

"Well, I was, until someone decided to start banging on my door. It's three forty five in the morning. It's three forty five and you're in LA. What the hell do you want?"

"Izzie and I got married," he announces.

Blink.

"And?" she asks, waiting for something she doesn't know. Preferably something that doesn't make her want to pop her eardrums and gouge out her eyes.

"And she left me. Her cancer went into remission and she left."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Blink.

"That doesn't explain why you're here. On my porch. At three forty-five in the morning."

"I don't know. I just thought…"

Blink.

"Are you going to finish that sentence or do I have to read your mind?"

"I don't know what I thought. I didn't really have an end to that sentence."

Blink.

"What do you want me to say, Alex?" she asks. "It sucks for you. I'm sorry you fell in love with someone who doesn't know how to love you back. But, seriously, it's three forty five in the freaking morning, and I'm tired."

"You were the only person I could think of."

"For?"

"You're the only person I can talk to, Addison. And that sucks because I screwed it up with you."

She sighs. "Why don't you come in?" she invites, pushing the door open and resigning herself to the fact that she's not getting enough sleep tonight.

She leads him into the living room. She doesn't know it, but he's taking in her living space and thinking how very Addison-y it is. She curls up on the couch and stares at him expectantly.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this, you know?" he laughs nervously.

Blink.

"Okay, so how was it supposed to go?" she asks.

"I don't know. Not like this."

She crosses her arms. "Life doesn't usually go according to plan."

"Yeah, I know, but we got married, you know?"

"I do. You keep saying so. And it's getting a little redundant, truth be told."

"Sorry. It's just… we got married. We got married and she was sick and I could have run a thousand times. And then she leaves me?"

She's really sick of hearing that Izzie and Alex got married. And she doesn't like self-pitying Alex. Pathetic doesn't look good on him. "Okay, you know what?" she snaps. "Yeah, it should have been different. You should be with her right now, not the boss you screwed over. You should be living a long happily ever after and riding off into the sunset. But you're not. You're here with me and you're here alone. And that sucks. It sucks that she left you. But you're no different from anybody else. We've all been dumped and we've all been left. I don't know, maybe the fact that you held her hand through cancer makes you special. Maybe that makes you different. But when you boil it all down, you've been given a Dear John letter and now you're hurting. That's nothing new, and it's certainly nothing special."

"Addison-"

"No," she cuts him off. Now he's gotten her started, she's going to see this rant through until the end. "I'm sorry that she left you, Alex. I'm sorry that you're hurting. And I'm sorry that you fell in love with such a thoroughly sucky person. But you don't have any right to come flying down to LA in the middle of the night just to tell me your sob story. The fact that you're living it sucks, and I get that misery loves company, but you need to take a step back and understand that being left doesn't make you special. If anything, moving on does. So if you want to fly back down her in a week or a month or a decade to tell me that you've finally moved on, I'll be here and I'll listen. But until then put down the violin and start trying to get over it."

"Addison," he says when he's ninety-five percent certain that she's not going to explode (and ninety-five percent is about the most certain you can be that she won't). "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For not taking any of my bullshit. You're the only person willing to call me on it now."

"Yeah, well, that's because everybody else cares about your feelings. They're trying to be nice. I don't have any such obligation."

"I probably deserved that."

"Probably," she agrees. She sighs. "I know it hurts right now, Alex. And I'm not saying that it's going to get better any time soon. But one day, you're going to wake up and it's not going to hurt as bad. And it'll just keep getting better. And then you're going to wake up and just know that you're over it. It's the best feeling in the world."

"Speaking from experience?" he asks wryly.

"Do the names Mark Sloan and Derek Shepherd mean anything to you?" she shoots back.

He laughs, and it's kind of empty, but that's better than no laugh at all. "You know, I might recognize them if I saw their faces."

She smiles, then bites her lip and studies the hardwood floor. She's about to do something incredibly stupid, but she's working on about three hours of sleep, so she gets a pass on the smart decision making thing. So quietly that he almost misses it, she asks, "Does the name Alex Karev?"

"What?" he asks.

"Never mind," she says quickly. "I'm sorry I said that."

"You love me?" he asks, trying to sort out everything in his suddenly muddled mind. Addison freaking Forbes Montgomery in love with him?

"I did," she nods. "Before."

"Oh."

"Yeah, so," she breathes, pulling herself up off the couch. "You're welcome to stay here tonight. I'll get you a couple of blankets and pillows."

"Thanks."

She gathers the promised items and returns to the living room. He's pacing nervously. "You're talking to me like this is the first time I've ever been left," he announces. "Like it's the first time someone I love has screwed me over. You don't know that, and you don't have the right to assume that."

She stares at him in surprise. She wasn't expecting a lecture for trying to help him.

"You left," he accuses her. "You left too. I know I screwed it up with you, but you deserve better and I didn't think… You left. I was trying, but I just wasn't doing a good job. You didn't know how hard I was trying. I wanted to be everything to you, everything you deserved. But I'm not and I won't ever be. I don't play catch and I don't barbeque. I'm rude and I've broken more people than I can count. But I was trying. And when I realized I couldn't be that for you, I pushed you away because I didn't want you to see that I had failed. I thought maybe you could give me a little more time. But you left. You left, just like Izzie did. The only difference is you keep coming back. You keep coming back and reminding me of what I could have had if I had tried just a little harder. I loved you and you left."

Blink.

"You came down here because your wife left you. Your wife. And now you're telling me that you love me? No! Just no."

"Addison-"

"No, Alex. You woke me up at three forty-five in the freaking morning so you could tell me all about how miserable you were because Izzie left you. You pounded on my door and made me think about Cristina Yang and Mark Sloan and Derek! You made me remember just how much I was hurting when I moved down here and now you're telling me that you love me. Maybe Izzie leaving you was how it was supposed to go, but this… this isn't. You broke me and I just… I need you out of my life now. I need you to leave so I can keep moving on."

"If you feel like that…" he says, trailing off.

She looks away so she won't have to deal with any subliminal messaging.

"If that's what you want me to do, I'll do it. But, for the record, I came down here because I wanted to let you know that I can't be that guy. I don't like to play catch and I can't barbeque. And I hate picket fences. But Izzie leaving made me realize a couple of things. It made me realize that we don't get infinite chances. We have to go after what we want, even if the odds are a million to one. But, most importantly, it made me realize that I couldn't miss my wife because I was too busy missing you. And that's what sucks the most. Not the cancer, or the being left, or the fact that I'm getting divorced. I broke you because I thought I was doing the right thing, and then I figure out that you were the right thing all along. And that just sucks, because it's been two years and you're moved on and I'm still in love with you, and I don't want that to ever change."

Blink.

"Oh."

She wraps her arms protectively around herself and shivers. "Are you cold?" he asks. She shakes her head no. "Are you going to say anything?"

She shakes her head no.

Blink.

Step.

Blink.

Step.

Blink.

Kiss.

"I don't want you to go," she informs him. He grins and leans in to kiss her again.

It's the first time he's ever done the leaning in the relationship.

She drops the blankets that she hadn't realized she was still holding. He informs her that she did. She looks at him with a cocky smirk. "I don't think you'll be needing those tonight anyways."

Blink.

She wakes up to the sun streaming through the windows and an empty bed. For one moment she thinks it was a dream, but then she hears the sound of bacon sizzling.

She pads out into the kitchen, surprised to find Alex already busy at the stove. She sneaks up behind him and wraps her arms around his waist, resting her chin on his shoulder. She nudges his face with her nose. "Smells good," she comments.

He turns around and kisses her. "You smell good," he replies.

She giggles.

Blink.

Her mood suddenly takes a turn for the worst as her mind heads straight for the area of their relationship she had avoided thinking about all night. Well, it wasn't as if she had been doing much thinking after about four fifteen anyways. "What about Izzie?"

"What about her?"

"Do you still… Are you… Am I your dirty mistress? Because I so don't want to be in a club with Mark Sloan and Meredith Grey."

"Are you asking me if I'm still in love with Izzie?"

"Maybe."

"I don't know how to answer that. A little."

She pulls away from him. "Oh."

"It's not going to go away overnight, Addison. And it's not important. What's important is that even if Izzie were to show up right now and beg me to take her back, I would tell her that I'm with you and that I'm in love with you. Because that's the truth. I loved Izzie enough to marry her. But I love you enough to realize that I made a mistake. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. And you aren't my dirty mistress. You were there first, so, if anything, she can join Sloan and Meredith."

"So, what?" she sighs. This is feeling very déjà-vu-y. "I'm just supposed to… wait it out?"

"If you don't want to, tell me to leave right now and I'll do it. But I can promise that it won't take long, and I would really appreciate it if you could not kick me out."

"How can you be so sure that it's just going to go away?"

He looks her in the eye and smiles. "Because when I woke up this morning, the first thing I thought about was you. And this entire morning, all I've been thinking about is you. And I hadn't thought about Izzie once since I told you that I love you until you brought her up two minutes ago. Because every second I'm around you, she fades just a little more in my mind."

"I'm still your dirty mistress," Addison grumbles.

"You're the woman that I want to spend the rest of my life with. Izzie's just a speed bump."

Addison's eyes sparkle impishly when she asks, "In that case, can we drive my car over her?"

He laughs. "The second I get back to Seattle, I swear, I'm going to divorce her."

Her face falls. "You really have to leave, don't you?" she sighs.

"All my crap's kind of in Seattle," he replies.

"I know. But I was kind of hoping that we could just stay in the LA bubble and not go to Seattle. I like the LA bubble."

"We?"

"What? You think I'm letting you leave me alone here? After the mind-blowing sex we just had? Inconceivable!" she jokes. "But I want to go back. I want to show everyone I'm not such a screw up. I want to yell that you love me from the freaking roof of the hospital. I want everyone to know that I love you. But if you don't want me to…"

"No! It's not that. It's just that I was thinking I would go back for like a week, maybe two. Just as long as the Chief made me stay."

She frowns. "The Chief? Stay? Stay where? In Seattle? What?"

"Stay in Seattle, come back to you," he says slowly.

"What? Why?"

He shrugs. "You like the LA bubble."

I actually, for once, really like this. I think it's the phrase "ungodly heathens". Or the word "deja-vu-y". In any case, I really like this, and I'd adore some feedback!

-Juli-