He walked toward the nurses' station where his wife stood looking over a chart. He roughly grabbed her arm and turned her to gain her attention. She looked away from her chart and looked up into his eyes.

"Hey, honey." she said sweetly, still gazing into his eyes waiting to see why he'd approached her. He let go of the tight grip he hand on her arm. Her skin turned red and she instantly put her hand over it.

"I need you for a consult." he said carelessly.

"Okay, give me a minute. I need to..." he cut her off before she could finish what she was going to say.

"No, I need you right now." he state firmly, leaving no room for argument. She closed her patients file and set it on the file rack.

"You lead, I'll follow." she smiled. He rolled his eyes and lead the way.

"23 year old male, Robert Epstein has CF and a brain tumor against his frontal lobe. Lungs sounds full. Figured I'd call you. After the 2 years you waste with that CF fellowship, I figured now might be a good time to test what you actually did during those two years."

"I wouldn't call it a waste, Derek." she replied.

"Call it what you will." he answered and walked into the room. "Robert, this is Dr. Montgomery..." and after brief hesitation he added. "Shepherd."

"Montgomery-Shepherd?" the patients asked dividing his attention between them. "Any relation?" he asked.

"Between who?" Derek asked coldly.

"Between you two.." Robert stated obviously.

"We're married." Addison smiled and took the chart from Derek. She opened it and skimmed through.

"Unfortunately." he mumbled beneath his breath assuming that neither his patient nor his wife heard although they both had. Addison looked toward him for less than a split second. The comment hurting her more than she could ever explain. A type of pain she's never felt before. But she refused to let it show. She went on with the consultation she was asked to do. A few minutes later they both walked out of the room. She gave the file back to Derek and turned to him before they part ways.

"It's Christmas." she reminded him assuming he already knew what else that meant.

"What's your point?" he asked stupidly.

"I'm gonna go to Joe's after work. I have to do some..catalog browsing because I don't have time to go to actual stores. I was hoping that maybe you could meet me. We could get hot buttered rum like we do every year." she offered.

"I'm busy, Addison." he replied. "I don't know if I can make it."

"Will you at least try?" she as almost begging at his point. He loved that sound of desperation in her voice. It reminded him that she was madly in love with him and he could control her as he please in result.

"No promises." he said and walked away.

She sat at the bar with a drink in her hand and catalog placed on the table in front of her. She heard the door open but didn't look up to see who had entered.

"Hey." she heard Joe say but still didn't look away from the catalog.

"Hey, Joe. Merry Christmas." Derek replied, she looked up and although he hadn't seen her, she smiled.

"Merry Christmas." Joe replied. "Double Scotch, single malt."

"You're a good man." he added while Joe poured his drink. He took the glass bring it closer to his lips.

"Hey, Dr. Shepherd." he heard his wife say. Her voice sounding almost seductive.

"Dr. Shepherd." he lifted his glass and then took a sip. She gathered the catalogs and stacked them into a neat pile as he walked her way and took a seat in the chair angled beside her.

"How is Mr. Epstein's frontal lobe?" she asked. She's always asked about his day and his patients, she loved when he would tell her about the surgeries he'd done. He never really care to ask about her career and after a few months into their residency she simply stopped talking to him about it, realizing he couldn't care less.

"He woke up smiling." he answered with a smile

"Congratulations." she replied with a grin on her lips. She played with the stick of cinnamon in her drink before taking a sip. She had initially bought the drink for him, she wasn't really into drinking on this particular night. But when he got his own drink she felt hurt, they'd always had hot buttered rum together on Christmas. She took the sip, knowing it wouldn't do anything to hurt her. It was only one sip.

"Thank you. What are you drinking?" he asked curiously. She laughed and put down the cup, picking up a green napkin and dabbing her lips. Her wedding ring caught his eye, she was actually wearing, not that she ever took it off. But he hadn't bothered to put his back on and seeing hers seemed unnatural.

"It's hot butter rum, it's delicious." she answered, the smile still present.

"It's Dickensian." he told her.

"Oh, well it is Christmas." she reminded him again. "Christmas, Derek. We love Christmas." she said, her voice didn't make it clear of what she was feeling. "Or and least we used to." she looked away, and the tone of her voice died down. A voice that Derek once found attractive, sexy, melodic but now it disgusted him.

"Christmas makes you wanna be with people you love." he said, she looked up with hope in her eyes. She though he was going to tell her he loved her, for the first time since she's arrived in Seattle months earlier. She'd said it to him once or twice in the beginning but when he never reciprocated the feeling and so she she gave up and stop saying it. He looked away instantly, not wanting to see that longing in her eyes. "I'm not saying this to hurt you, or because I wanna leave you because I don't." he looked up briefly and saw that her eyes were drained of the desire and passion. A passion that once burned through her body and was visible to anyone who looked in her eyes. Now it was gone and the only thing he was a pathedic woman sitting in front of him. The only thing he saw in her eyes these past few months were desperation.

She remembered the night the poroposed to her, the look in his eyes. She always thought that when it was right she could look into his eyes and just know that it was meant to be. With Derek she never saw it, but she was so in love with him that it blindened her. In the begining of their relationship he looked at her with... something. She didn't know exactly what it was. Maybe it was just the "dreaminess" that she saw in his eyes and confused it for love. Now, in the recent years even that fake affection was gone. When she looked into his eyes she saw nothing but hate toward her and resentment toward their marriage.

"Meredith wasn't a fling." he continued "She wasn't revenge." he saw her lean away from the table and slouch in her seat. "I fell in love with her, and that doesn't go away because I decided to stay with you." he informed her, and leaned back onto his chair, turning away from her so he wouldn't have to look at her anymore. He poured the contents of his drink into his mouth while she numbly sat there staring at nothing in particular trying not to cry although it was taking more effort than she'd thought.

She dragged the stick of cinnamon in her cup from one side of the cup to another as she sat silently beside her husband, unsure of what she was suppose to tell him. Finally she leaned back toward the table, able to get a glimpse of the side of his face.

"I'm sorry." she whispered. He pretended he couldn't hear her but she knew he could. "You're right, you should be with someone you love. Go find her, take her out to dinner, tell her you love her. It's Christmas, you should be able to say those words to someone tonight."

"Addison.." he said tiredly assuming she was trying to make him feel guilty. "You're still my wife, I'm not going to leave you alone on Christmas. Especially to be with her because I know you're going to use it against me."

"I'm not going to use it against you." she promised. Truth was she'd rather be alone than be with him because every time she looked into his eyes she'd know he doesn't love her anymore and she'd know that she let him down. "It's not like we were going to do anything. I'm just gonna go ho.." she stopped unable to bring herself to say the word home. The trailer had never been home for her. She just forced herself to like there for his sake. "I'm gonna spend the night doing paperwork, either way." she corrected herself.

"Okay." he got up and took his wallet out to pay for his drink.

"I'll pay on my way out." she brought his attention to the ATM card between her fingers. They were still married, all their money was in ONE joint account.

"I don't need you to pay for anything for me anymore." he answered bitterly dropping money on to the table. "I'll see you at home." he added and left.

Addison just sat there, still stirring the drink around.

"Are you okay, Dr. Shepherd?" Joe asked from the bar. She looked up at him, tears gathering in her eyes.

"I'm fine." she answered with her voice breaking. She looked at the watch on her wrist, it was midnight and suddenly it was clear. The last half of her life was over. It was wasted. She put the catalogs into her brief case. She stood at the bar and handed him her ATM card. After he had her sign the receipt she left.

Derek walked into the Trailer. "Addie?" he called expecting to see her still up doing charts as she had said she would be. It was three in the morning, she was usually still up at this time, only because his coldness in bed would prevent her from sleeping. She wasn't in bed, she was no where to be seen. And that's when Derek noticed that his trailer was no longer stuffed with hundreds of boxes of shoes. They'd been everywhere since she moved it, the trailer was too small to store them so she had them everywhere. Now every last box was gone. He moved closer to the table and saw an envelope. He turned on the light overhead and saw his name written across it. He ripped it open and took out a card and out fell her wedding rings. He set the rings on the corner of the table and opened the card. In her perfect hand writing it read:

I bought this card weeks ago expecting to write something different in it. After tonight I'm not sure I can write what I had in mind. I'm sorry for ruining your favorite holiday... and everything else. All the boxes wrapped in silver are yours, I'm not sure which one is which. I hope you like them, except that one thing which is going to be a horribly shocking disappointment. But don't worry, the subject will be terminated by the time you wake up tomorrow.

All my love,
Addie

He dropped the card on the table. After everything he'd put her through, she still signed the card 'All My Love' after what he told her that night... she still wrote it. Derek went toward the boxes on the couch. He picked up all the silver ones and set them before himself. All of them were in the exact same sized box and wrapped perfectly identical to one another. He ripped the wrapping off the first one, it was two plane tickets reading their names. She got them tickets to spend New Years with his family. He threw them on the table beside the card and opened the next one. A private box for the upcoming super bowl. He tossed it aside and got the next box. In it was a note.

Go look in the cabinet above the bed.

He threw it down and went into the "bedroom." He opened the cabinet and saw about a hundred bottles of his brand of hair gel, with a note angled toward him.

I know you hate going to the story to buy it, so I got enough to last you a year... or three.

He went back to the table and unwrapped the final box. He pulled the top off a small white box and saw a peice of paper inside. It wasn't just any piece of paper. It was a black and white grainy, hardly visible picture, a sonogram. In the white border, her now unmistakable hand writing said.

Merry Christmas Daddy. I love you.

Yet again a heart was drawn at the end of her message. And again there were those three words, almost as if she wrote them to haunt him. The picture fell from him fingers onto the floor of the trailer. He looked down but didn't bother to pick it up.

To Be Continue...
Please Review

Author's Note:

I wanted to wait to Christmas to post this but I couldn't help myself.
It's meant to be a few chapters long, most it of it is written already. I really wanna know what you guys think of it.
I watched the bar scene about a millions with subtitles to make sure I got the lines right. And I watched it in slow motion once of twice to get the actions to a perfect T. I did change around the Epstein case, I know Addison originally had nothing to do with it.