A/N: Kind of rambly portrait of Addison...ONESHOT. Please review.

Addison Forbes Montgomery had always thought that her life would be perfect. She refused to accept anything short of perfection. She was a straight-A student throughout her entire educational experience. Her room had always been spotless, her bed made. Her books were always been organized alphabetically and additionally by category. Her emotions, likewise, were always tidy, compartmentalized. Nothing was ever out of her control, and that was the way that she liked it.

Addison had felt like her life was perfect, at one point. When she had just married Derek, it had seemed as though everything in her life was perfectly in place. Medically, she was at the top of her game. She was at the right place on the timeline that she had set up for her life. Everything looked promising. In a few years, she was going to have children, after she had established herself as a surgeon. For a couple of years, she was on top of the world.

Of course, the problem with being at the top of the world is that there is nowhere to go but down. And down she went. Addison's plans to have children were never realized. Derek began ignoring her as he buried himself in his work. She thought that she was okay, and that everything was under control. She could see no reason why it was not perfectly logical for her perfect husband to pursue his perfect career. They were both going to be at the top of their games, they were both going to be the premier surgeons in the country in their respective areas. Addison thought that she was happy.

Mark threw a fork in her plans, sending her reeling. Mark showed her all of the ways that her life was imperfect. Mark made her feel unworthy, that she was already a failure. He convinced her that nothing she ever did would be perfect, so she should just give up and loosen up.

Addison could never figure out why Mark's opinion made a difference to her. Perhaps it was because he and Derek were so close. Addison had never been one to need external motivation, or at least she had never thought of herself as such. Being motivated by external forces was weak, pathetic. Needing validation from others in order to be self-satisfied was unhealthy.

The truth was, Addison had never had the luxury of high self-esteem. Nobody knew that, Addison herself wasn't even aware. She had never known that the reason she strove for success in everything that she did was because there was nobody telling her that she was good enough. Nobody told her that just being plain old Addison was special, and Addison so desperately wanted to be special. The only way that she could get attention was through her achievements, and to be honest, the only genuine praise that she ever got was from teachers, and even those instances were few and far between.

Addison had been that girl. Every school, workplace, etc. has one—the girl who works nonstop, studying the same page for three days in order to absorb every possible word, who practices the same dance step for three months straight just to prove her superiority. Ballet is an art that lends itself to such personalities, and fittingly, Addison had been serious about it—until he instructor told her that she was too tall. That had been devastating because it had forced Addison to see that she was imperfect, and perfection was not within her grasp.

Addison had not been willing to admit that perfection was unattainable, so she quit ballet and threw herself into her studies. She had, thus, been class valedictorian. She had gone to Harvard. That seemed pretty damned perfect.

But suddenly, thanks to her husband's best friend, she was doubting herself. She had thought that she was happy, that her life was not lacking—which was exactly why, when one night Mark kissed her, she was completely caught off guard. There was something dangerous about it, something that caused her insides to spark—something that made her feel special, important despite her imperfections. He was the only person that she let herself be imperfect in front of, because he could read her like a book. He was the only one who saw that she was insecure, and additionally, he was the only one who could make her feel insecure. Granted, he was only making her aware of something that was very much present all the time, but still. Even though he made her feel flawed, he was the only one who made her feel special.

Derek's only fault, to be sure, was that he was too perfect. He was Prince Charming in every way that Addison had thought mattered. He was a good guy, sweet, and a talented young surgeon with promise. The sex was good. He cared about her too much. He was too forgiving. He was too interested in his work.

Well, there were a few things that she didn't exactly love about him. He was messy, for one, and he enjoyed the outdoors. He tended to keep to himself overly much. He also liked to compete with Addison when it came to…well, anything really. Which wouldn't have been such a bad thing except for the fact that Derek had to do far less than Addison to succeed; for instance, where Addie had to study things for hours to get them down perfectly, Derek needed only fifteen or twenty minutes. She resented that about him, and labeled him as lazy.

Addison had always felt superior to Derek, no matter how right or wrong that perception was. Mark, on the other hand, was a different story. True, Mark was a prick, and had about as much morality as a serial killer, but he was perpetually strong, smart and confident, and yet he didn't seem to have to do anything. Without studying, his brain retained many times more information than Addison's, and he enjoyed rubbing it in her face. He could make her feel sub-par like no one else could. Which was precisely why she felt that she needed him so much. He brainwashed and seduced her.

When Derek caught Addison and Mark in the throes of passion, Addison's perfect life really began to crumble. Up until that point, everything other than Mark had been perfect, as far as she was concerned. When she was caught cheating on her husband, she could hide in her excuses any longer. She was forced to see her life for the imperfect piece of shit that it was. She had to acknowledge that she had no control over anything in her life.

Upon relocating to Seattle, Addison thought that she could hold up the façade that she had everything perfectly under control, and that her life was the picture of perfection, which had worked just fine until her previously "perfect" husband had made her out to be nothing more than an adulteress, and he had found a waif-like, needy little blonde intern that struck his fancy. It turned out that Derek hadn't wanted perfection, but rather he had wanted someone who wasn't afraid to be vulnerable every now and again, someone who wasn't so focused on winning all the time, who could just…be with him peacefully.

Addison had wasted most of her life trying to be something that she was not. Something that was not human. She had thought that if she seemed perfect, impenetrable and strong, that she would have everything she had ever wanted, and she would feel special. People would see her as being special. As it turned out, plain old Addison was special. Too bad she discovered it too late to save her marriage. By the time she had it figured out, Derek's heart already belonged to Meredith. He looked at Meredith, as he never could Addison. Meredith would let Derek protect her, she would listen to what he told her to do, and she wouldn't fight him tooth and nail on every little thing. She wouldn't hold him to superhuman standards or make him feel inferior.

Addison only wished that she had been able to put aside her desire for utter perfection long enough to realize that all Derek wanted was for her to be herself.

Now she was utterly alone, and only had herself to blame.

...and Mark.