Say Something

by Echante

Mark and Addison, a psychoanalysis.

I'll be the one, if you want me to.

They'd never been capable of being adults at the same time.

They first meet in a bar, at age 22. She met her boyfriend and eventual husband young, and the future's inevitability hung around her neck like a noose. She's sitting at the counter, fingering a gin and tonic and contemplating chaos when he walks in. Her head snaps toward the sound of the door, scowling at the intrusion; the interruption of the bar's haphazard tempo. When he walks toward her, the tempo seems to slow—everything seems to slow down. He sits two seats away from her and orders with a raspy, rugged voice.

Her knees buckle, even though she's half-sitting down.

He observes this in the corner of his eye, but doesn't divert any effort away from his lazy conversation with the bartender.

"How about that Elway?" He huffs as he watches the Denver Broncos dismantle San Diego's Chargers in the last game of the regular season.

The bartender shakes his head, "I think they're going all the way again this year, those assholes. They would've never beat us without that fucker Elway."

"Damn right," he nods and then shakes his head.

She rolls her eyes and turns her attention back to the booze, bored of football, bored of men. She replays her latest fight with Derek in her head. He was down on one knee, jewelry box in hand and all she could do was gape at him in anger. She didn't know why she was angry at him, it had all been very logical, methodical even. She was graduating from college, and even though they'd both be at Columbia Med in the fall, it made sense to get married before the craziness began.

By the time she completes her thought process, she's muttering under her breathe. She catches herself and opens her eyes and then almost falls off her chair, taken aback. He's sitting right next to her, the man from the bar—the Elway enthusiast. The bartender had moved on to the other end of the counter and was flirting shamelessly with two skanky blonde co-eds. She rolls her eyes.

"You don't approve?" The John Elway man follows her gaze with obvious mirth.

She looks at him and blinks a couple of times. He's very attractive. She's a bit drunk.

She flutters a hand in their direction, nonchalant. "It's just so contrived," she's a bit pretentious, "men talk to men about sports, men talk to women to get laid." She chews on her bottom lip a bit, and scrunches her eyebrows together, thinking and then completing her thought, "it's a two-track life you guys live." Satisfied, she sighs and falls silent, turning back to her drink.

He smirks, "so?"

She shrugs, "I don't know. Just thought I'd let you know, point it out," she's really drunk, she punches him in the shoulder, "hey if you don't care, you don't care. You go man."

"Mark," he offers, she feels like he's smoldering, "My name is Mark."

"Hi Mark," she says brightly, putting a hand on his thigh, "I'm Addison." She twists the corner of her mouth and then adds, "Montgomery. Addison Montgomery." He raises his eyebrows in recognition and surprise but she doesn't notice, she's preoccupied by the voices in her head. And then she does the unthinkable, she does something no Montgomery would ever do, she kisses him. But really it's a lunge and an attack, because before he knows what is coming, she's all over him.

And then it's over.

She blinks, confused because he's standing and suddenly ten feet away. He closes the distance between them, but he doesn't go all the way. Instead, he places his hands on her shoulder and guides her back to her chair. She looks angry.

"I'm sorry," he tells her, he almost looks pained but she can't be sure. He gets up and begins his exit, but halfway through he turns, "if you were anyone else," he says, sighing, "You'll see why soon enough."

The first time they met he leaves her alone in a bar, with all of her issues, all of her pain.

And I, am feeling so small.

She's staring through the endless white sea of her wedding dress, holding a glass of red wine, sipping distractedly. Her mother is pinching at her thighs and her stomach, frowning when she grabs skin. Ten days, she is saying, ten days until the wedding, and Addison's stomach churns. Derek doesn't notice, he is deep in conversation with her father and his parents, frowning and laughing at all the right cues. He's suave and confident.

Her mom begins making a list of banished foods, and hands her the number of a personal trainer. She urges her not to eat solids for the next few days and then begins what feels like a soliloquy about liposuction. She's not listening though, her eyes are scanning the room. She frowns when she doesn't see him. Where's Mark? she thinks to herself. She contemplates tipping her glass and staining the dress, and derives satisfaction from the presence of the image in her head. She doesn't do it though because she's a Montgomery. There are expectations.

A scream brings her back to the present and she suddenly realizes where Mark must be. All heads turn to the source of the disruption and her thoughts are confirmed. A sheepish Mark emerges from the coat closet with a half-naked Nancy Shepherd on his heels. They look down and giggle while Carolyn Shepherd berates her daughter. Mark sneaks away and appears at her side.

"Oops." He says and she watches her mother's retreating figure, departing to talk to Carolyn and to calm her down.

"Really?" She says, feigning annoyance but with twitching lips, "At your best friend's dinner party?"

He shrugs, taking the wine from her hands and swirling it before taking a drink, "Hey she offered, who am I to say no to that?"

"You're a prick," she says, with her pointer finger jabbing toward his chest, "look at the poor girl." They both turn back toward the chaos. Nancy, with her shoulders slumping and her arms crossed against her chest was miserably attempting to disappear into the couch.

"Probably." He says, resigned, "but at least I get laid."

"What's that supposed to mean?" She arches an eyebrow, but can't muster the necessary sass. She's too lazy. Instead, she wrests her glass of wine back from between his fingers and takes a long gulp.

He laughs, "Everybody knows that beginning of marriage is the end of sex."

She gives him her best glare but doesn't retort. Instead she twiddles with the hem of her dress and asks him abruptly, "Do you think I'm fat?"

"What?" He guffaws like she's joking, but she presses on.

"Do you think I'm fat? My Mom's trying to tell me that I am."

"I don't date fat people," he says in reply.

She narrows her eyes, "We've never dated."

He looks at her, and he's kidding, she knows. But she thinks, maybe hopes, there's sincerity in his voice, "in my head we have."

She fingers the stem on her wine glass, and asks without making eye contact, "Do you think we're making a mistake," she tilts her head in her fiancé's direction, "Derek and I?

He doesn't reply, he knows she's not finished.

"I used to dream about leaving here, about moving away forever. But I haven't even left for a bit, and it feels like I'm signing a contract to stay here forever. To be this person for the rest of my life." She whispers the last part, looking back at him, "what if I'm meant to be someone else?"

He finds himself looking at her lips, and croaks out a response, "why do you say that?"

She shakes her head, "For all of my life, every part of me, everything about me has been manufactured by Bizzy Montgomery. By my," she spits out the word, "mother." She turns to lean her head against his shoulder, "and I don't know if I even like Derek."

He turns to look sideways at her, a bit worried by the statement, but she reassures him quickly, "I know I love him. I know I'll be happy with him. But I don't even know what I like. I don't know how much of who I am is me," she tilts her head toward Bizzy, "and how much of me is her. I mean, she was the one who brought Derek home one day. She was the one who brought him over and she told me, I remember, that night she told me I was going to marry him…" she pauses thoughtfully, "I think she demanded me to marry him. And I love him, I do, but a part of me can't get over the fact that this is an arranged marriage." She looks down, embarrassed. "I'm sorry," she says remembering, "I know he's your best friend."

There's silence after her speech and he's surprised because he feels hopeful. And then guilt takes over. "I'm sure it's nothing," he says, standing, eager to put some distance between them, "I'll go get Derek, you guys should talk it through."

She watches his retreating figure and can't help but feel a bit of déjà vu, she drinks another gulp to shake it away.

Anywhere I would've followed you.

She runs away seven years into the marriage. She can't take it anymore—the silence, the echoes of the hollow house. She boards a plane to Miami, rather than crying (Montgomerys don't cry), and calls in sick and then uses her vacation time when her sick days run out.

He goes after her on the third day, worried—even more so because Derek is not. Relax she's a big girl, he'd said. It makes Mark's blood boil.

She blinks when he knocks on her door, and somehow knows who is there even before he's standing in front of her. He has a knack for seeing her at her worst. Even so, she'd hoped it was Derek and was utterly heartbroken when she saw Mark in his place. "What do you want?" It's a question but she says it like a statement. She's not really inviting a reply, she's hoping he'll turn around and leave.

He takes in her disheveled appearance and smells alcohol when she speaks. He frowns. "Are you okay?" He says it stupidly, grunts it out.

She tilts her head and stares at him, what do you think? her glare says for her.

Suddenly she sits up and positions herself directly in front of him. "Do you think I'm attractive?" She asks, earnestly.

"What?" He's avoiding eye contact.

She bites her lips, frustrated, and then she violently throws off her robe. His eyes whip toward her, surprises and then he turns his head, ashamed. "Addy!" He protests, "put that back on!"

"Answer the question!" She roars, angrily.

He pleads with her, "Look I will tell you, okay? If you just put your robe back on."

She stares at him and sees that he's frightened. He's scared for her, or of her, which one she's not sure. Disappointed she complies and collapses in a heap on the hotel floor. When he's satisfied that she's fully clothed he turns back toward her and then walks over to her position on the ground. He grabs her arm and gently tugs her onto the bed and sits beside her.

"Look at me," he says, firmly.

She does, so meekly that he's not sure if he's really looking at Addison. "You are so beautiful," he whispers softly, but with resolve. He kisses her, but it's chaste and he pulls away quickly not trusting himself with her. She leans in for more but he denies her. She can feel tears welling up in her eyes. Stop it, she tells herself, Montgomerys don't cry. She bites her lip instead.

"If I were beautiful, you'd kiss me."

She's too stubborn, too self-absorbed to understand what she is doing to him. She's asking him to choose between his best friend and this woman who he loves, somewhere in the recesses of his heart.

They stare at each other, his hands on her biceps, holding her in place. She breaks just before he thinks he can't take it any longer. "Fine." She says, "Then I'm leaving." She gets up to go, but he reaches out and pulls her back down, mashing his lips against hers.

Later, he watches her sleep, her bare back reflecting beams of pale moonlight. He knows they're fucked, but he hangs on to the moment. Calm before the storm he thinks before he finally closes his eyes.

I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you.

They don't speak for a while after that night. He goes back to his routine: work, sex, sleep, repeat. She returns to her charade with renewed vigor. She tries to feel guilty for that night, but finds that she can't. On the other hand, he doesn't have the same luck. There are days he thinks she is heartless, strutting around like nothing happened.

He doesn't know that for the first time in her life she feels free. She's giddy because she's broken the rules and gotten away with it. Because suddenly she has a dark secret that is hers and no one else's. Suddenly she's not perfect—and she likes it.

Reality comes crashing down a week later.

Her mother comes into the city like the fucking cavalry and whisks her away to brunch. At the table, Addison sips her orange juice and stares down at her food, silent. Bizzy studies her, rolls her eyes and then says, "You know, your father had affairs."

Addison freezes.

"Don't think you're so smart Addison," Bizzy says, never lifting her eyes from her plate, "don't think this is something you are getting away with. You are not that cleaver, and Derek is not that stupid."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she says coldly, through gritted teeth.

Bizzy grins at her, baring wolfish teeth, "Attagirl Addy," she reaches across the table with her index finger and pushes Addison's chin up, "just like Daddy."

Only years later, when her mother's sexuality came to light did she realize that she'd been played. That her Mom had always pulled the strings; she was making her dance. But then again, maybe she and her Dad were the same—trapped in a loveless marriage with someone they love and can't leave. Maybe it was inevitable, that she would become her parents.

It scares her straight though, the thought of becoming her father. She avoids Mark like none other. She frowns when she sees him, snaps when he tries to talk to her. Mark on his part, reacts predictably—he follows a nurse into a supply closet and forgets for a few moments, all the shit in their lives.

There are days when he thinks he should be celibate, he should abstain to prove something to her. He loves her, in his way, as much as he can. He wants her to show some sort of feeling toward him, he wants to know that it meant something, anything. More than anything though, he wants to talk to her again. He wants to go over on Friday nights and eat fast food and watch movies. He wants to move her hair when it splays across her face while she's reading a chart or nodding off. He thinks he'd give it back for what he had before. It wasn't worth it.

They don't talk for a month, he watches her from afar and realizes she's pretending too hard. It's all wrong, this act of hers. She'd once been so good, so convincing, but now her rhythm is off—she smiles too wide. She clings to her husband too hard. It takes her two Venti Americanos to be functional in the morning and he can tell she's spending more time now on her face, on her hair. She's too impeccable.

Some days, he catches her looking back at him and he thinks, he knows that she's a bit wistful. She's too stubborn, too perfect to leave her husband. But she could be happy, he thinks. They could both be happy if she wasn't so damn intent on playing out this drama. Then he corrects himself. Maybe. Maybe she really didn't want him. Maybe she really still loved Derek, despite all he'd done to hurt her. He shakes the thought from the back of his mind and makes a bee line toward the nearest on-call room, grabbing a nurse on his way. Maybe this is it for us, he thinks. And then he stops thinking.

I'm still learning to love.

She's wearing a very revealing dress, but her husband doesn't notice. Instead, he's glancing at his watch, muttering under his breathe about hospital functions and pretentious douchebags. She can practically feel his fingers itching for surgery, he taps nervously at his glass of wine but he doesn't sip it. He's hoping to get paged she realizes. She rolls her eyes.

Suddenly Derek's eyes light up and he takes her by the hand and maneuvers her across the room. She's surprised until she realizes their target. Then, she's frightened.

Mark is standing at the bar, chatting with some blonde bimbo and Derek was guiding her right to him. She groans, and then plasters on a smile.

"Mark! You dog!" Derek practically yells at his friend. Mark wonders why he's so chipper, he hasn't really talked to him in weeks, "thank God you're here." He finds it hard to look at his friend, the guilt begins settling in and he has to force himself to make eye contact. "This place is the worst," he says and gestures out across the room, "Have you ever seen so many old farts together at one time?"

Mark doesn't reply, he's suddenly noticed what she was wearing and it was making his head cloudy.

"Mark?" Derek presses, and Mark prays he doesn't follow his gaze. Thankfully, he doesn't because Addison had become almost inanimate to her husband. He winces because he shouldn't be grateful because of that.

She feels him staring and she looks away, blushes. She enjoys it, but she won't admit that. She craves it, but he'll never know.

"Oh sorry." He's saying to Derek, "Yeah, it's seriously a drag here."

Derek laughs and slaps him on the back, then points toward a women wearing a red dress, standing in the corner, "Hey that girl over there is cute, you should go talk to her."

Addison's eyes snap up at the mention of this and she doesn't know which hurts more, the fact that her husband could appreciate attractiveness in other women or the idea of watching Mark flirting, touching, and then leaving with another woman. She bites her lip resolutely, Montgomerys don't cry.

Mark, for his part, makes the mistake of looking back toward the married couple on his way toward Red Dress. He's unnerved by what he sees, it throws him off. Derek, already bored, fiddles with his pager, willing it to buzz. Addison, on the other hand, looks at the floor, biting her lip, face blank. He stumbles.

It only takes a second, but when he recomposes himself the scene at the bar has already rearranged. A third party had been thrown in, and the Shepherds reprise their happy act. Derek's hand quickly snakes around his wife's waist and Addison's mouth dutifully curls in the right direction, up. He sighs, reminds himself that Addison hasn't talked to him in weeks, and finishes his walk toward Red Dress. But just as he descends, he sneaks one last look and he blinks because he's not sure if he's seeing it right—Addison's face falling, her eyes meeting his pleading. And then she looks away and the moment is gone.

He goes in for the kill.

I'm just starting to crawl.

She thinks the problem might be that she's not attractive enough; years of early calls and debilitating stress have rendered her aged, ragged. So she does what she does best: she takes control, grits her teeth. She sleeps early to wake up early. She struggles through hour long runs in Central Park. She stops eating anything that isn't green and crunchy. Before long, her skin radiates and her legs harden into rock. Her belly deflates, soft and flat like a pancake.

Derek doesn't notice.

It infuriates her, his apathy. He's tuned it so it purrs with consistency: he walks by her, gives a hollow smile and then embraces the surgery board. He takes in the curves of the chalk-white letters, admires the pronouncement of his name under countless surgeries and smiles—a full board.

In response, she pushes further in this hopeless direction. She stops eating altogether, she runs longer, pushes harder. She's become so tired, so burned out that she faints one time—blacks out—thankfully in the dark recesses of an on-call room.

It doesn't matter.

She's battling against the on-call room floor when she hears it—the knock-out blow. Derek's unmistakable whistle trills through the hall, getting louder as he walks past her and then softer as he walks away. She groans and gives up, resigning herself to the floor.

He finds her there, minutes later. She's too tired for shame, so she allows him to pick her up and carry her to the nearby bunk. He lays her down gingerly—too gingerly—and she winces. She doesn't want kindness, she wants to be hit over the head. She craves violence and disarray. She just wants to feel something, anything. But she doesn't ask and he doesn't comply. Instead, he arranges the pillows under her head and rubs soft circles against her wrist, looking at her with marked concern.

"Please don't," she says, turning away.

"Addison," he ignores her, maybe she didn't say it loud enough, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she says with a huff, "I'm just a bit tired. That's all."

He lifts her wrist into his eye-line, "Jesus, you're tiny."

"I haven't had much of an appetite lately," she replies, shrugging.

He concerned, but he doesn't press. A mistake.

"Anyway," she says, wincing as she pushes herself to her feet, "I have to get back to work."

"Addison," he almost begs, "Please don't."

But physiology does his work for him: she can't get up, everything in her fails in this endeavor and she collapses back onto the bed.

He's very alarmed now. "Addy," he says, his voice insistent, desperate, "Please don't get up, I'm going to get you some food. Stay here."

He takes off sprinting, and dashes through the hospital, never pausing to notice the confusion and stares in his wake. He grabs the first things he sees in the cafeteria and barely slows as he rounds the corner and turns towards the on-call room. He pauses to collect himself before knocking. No answer. He barges in unceremoniously but it's too late. Shit.

He hears laughter and he turns into it, his eyes instinctively searching for its source. She's standing at the nurse's station, smile plastered back on, unwavering. She's collected and steady, listening with uncommon poise to a story she's heard a few times already about an adult patient whose mother still insisted on bathing him.

He glares at her, lifting the food in her direction. She glares back, pats the nurse's hand, and walks away.

Say something, I'm giving up on you.

He's his father's greatest achievement, and his worst failure. In spite of the bitter pit of resentment that balls up against something he can only assume is his spleen, Mark Sloan has to admit that he is his father's son.

When Mark was three years old, his father, Dax Sloan, began building a batting cage in the family's backyard. Mark's mother, Marie looked on as Dax hammered away, humming and spitting his way through the project. When Mark turned four his father suggested they play catch. They didn't stop playing for fifteen years.

Dax Sloan was a baseball player. It defined him. It suited him. Athletic and strong, he'd been a pitcher in the minor leagues before throwing out his shoulder one too many times, killing his dream of playing in the majors. When Marie birthed a son he began to feel the rosy fog flood his brain once again, and the taste of popcorn and victory was far too delicious for him to deny. He began mapping a clear road to collegiate baseball for his newborn son on the drive home from the hospital.

They practiced every day for hours, throwing the ball back and forth. Mark, five years old and hyperactive, often squirmed, bored of the repetition. His eyes would float toward each distraction, and Dax, taking note, would reward such indolence with a whack in head. Batting practice was even worse. His father would pitch him ball after ball in the burning, mid-afternoon sun. He would lob balls at the five-year-old's head to teach him how to refrain from swinging, when to take the walk. Mark's ears would ring for hours every time the ball connected with his metal helmet.

When he was in high school, Mark quarterbacked the football team when baseball was in its off-season. He'd never tell his father, but he much preferred the methodological pace of football to baseballs' nine-innings. Additionally, a natural leader, he excelled at quarterback, and was widely celebrated at his school for taking the team to the state championship. In his junior year, college agents began appearing at his games. Later on, they began to call his Dad.

Whenever a college coach called the house, his father would pick up and listen to the pitch. The minute the agent said the word football, he'd immediately check out. He'd let the coach finish and then politely dispatch him with a diplomatic, "we'll take that under consideration."

One day, halfway through the season, Dax called Mark into his study and asks his son to sit down. Mark, still frightened of his father, complies.

"Son," he began, "We need to discuss your football career."

"What about it?" Mark squirmed nervously under his father's gaze.

"I think it's time you quit."

Mark gawked at his father, eyes bulging out of their sockets. "Quit?" He repeats in disbelief, "Dad, we're in the middle of the season."

Dax gruffly shakes his head, "They can find someone else, you need to concentrate on your pitching, your slider is started to unravel."

"Baseball season isn't for months, I'll have plenty of time to practice."

"Forget football son," Dax says sharply, "Football is keeping you from being a better pitcher."

"I can't just leave the team in the middle of the season!" Mark protests.

His father isn't deterred, "They'll find someone new. There's a back-up isn't there?"

"I like football Dad," he says feebly, scared, knowing the direction this is heading.

"Damn it Mark!" Dax slams his fist on the table, causing everything to jump a couple inches, "you don't practice enough, how do you expect to pitch in the majors if you never practice?"

"I practice two hours every day!" He says, flabbergasted.

"It's not enough. Stop arguing Mark. I've already called your coach and pulled you from the team." Mark stares at him, his mouth agape. "Now come on, back to the batting cage."

Mark doesn't move.

"Come on Mark!" His father is yelling, "Let's go!"

He still doesn't move, doesn't speak, doesn't breath. And then, Dax does the unthinkable. He sends a big, bronze candlestick flying across the air where it connects with Mark's face. Mark's stunned.

"GET UP!" He roars.

But Mark doesn't look at him, the beginning of tears burning against the back of his eyes. He doesn't dare to look up, knowing that even the moisture coating his pupils is a sign of weakness worthy of his father's derision. Instead, he walks out of the door, bleeding and ignoring his father's yells and threats. He keeps walking, and walks five miles until he lands on the Shepherd's front porch. When he rings the doorbell, he's greeted by Derek's mother. Her eyes widen when she sees the blood dripping down his face.

He spends the rest of junior year in the Shepherd house and goes on to play wide-receiver at a second-division school. He doesn't throw another pitch until he has children of his own.

It was over my head.

He's reunited with his father at his mother's deathbed.

In high school, he'd worked hard at school to piss his father off. He read voraciously because his father deemed reading worthless. In a way, he thinks, he owes his career, his academic excellence to his father—without him he'd have no edge, no drive—he wouldn't be the best. Even his years of wide-receiver in college serve to give him soft hands, perfect for a surgeon.

Sitting in a hospital, surrounded by the shrill beeping of heart monitors and the slow, almost audible drip of the IV, he thinks it might be the perfect place to see his father again. Only, neither of them make a single sound. They haven't spoken in years, yet they still have nothing to say—a few years was never too long.

They're both there for Marie, whom they love, but it was more than that for Mark. She'd been his buffer, she'd shown so much patience and forgiveness. Sometimes he hated her for letting Dax hit him, sometimes he hated her for sticking around when Dax yelled and emotionally abused her. But she was always patient, always soft-spoken and she never complained a day in her life. For her last moments on earth he'd return the favor, he'd play the buffer.

When it's over they shake hands and walk in separate directions. His father heads towards the door, Mark heads back to the OR. Then he stops. He turns around and his father has crumpled to the floor, tears streaming down his otherwise rugged face. And then Mark sees it for the first time that day—he's broken.

Mark doesn't speak, but he kneels next to his Dad and puts a hand on his shoulder. Derek comes bounding round the corner, recognizes the occasion and the man on the floor. He sits down next to them. No one speaks. The murmurs of the nurses and interns slow and then stop and they all walk softly around the two attendings on the floor. No one dares to even whisper.

After fifteen minutes, Addison rounds the corner and is taken aback by the scene in front of her. Derek has since left for a surgery, so it is just Mark and his father, one man sobbing with abandon and the other stone still, expressionless. Mark doesn't register her hand when she places it on his shoulder, but she settles herself on the ground beside him and pulls his head into her lap.

And suddenly he can't stop crying.

She should be more uncomfortable, but she feels at home, cradling Mark in her lap and squeezing Dax's hand. They don't move for another ten minutes, until Dax stands abruptly, grunts a half-hearted "thanks," in her direction, and then makes a beeline for the door. She stands as well and offers her hand to Mark. "Come on," she says softly, "let's get you home."

I know nothing at all.

They don't try to deny it any more. She practically moves into his apartment and the brownstone begins collecting cobwebs from lack of use. Derek's nights were spent in on-call rooms, she feels less guilty spending them laughing with Mark.

They forget for a while. They don't argue, they take strolls through Central Park and marvel as the leaves fall on them, heaping into piles and then sweeping away with the wind. She smiles more than she's used to. They don't sleep together, although the push and pull of yearning becomes so overwhelming at times that they have to leave the room, be somewhere public. He doesn't sleep with other women, but she doesn't know because he does tell her. She never asks.

There are days when she forgets who she's supposed to love. When she has to blink twice to clear the fog from her mind and remind herself that Mark is not her husband. When pressed by outsiders, she shrugs and says they are best friends. She says it with a clear conscience, after all there's no sex involved and they're perfectly chaste with one another. But some days, when she slips and allows herself the clarity to reflect she realizes that there is so much more between them—even without the carnal, without the physical—than she ever had with Derek. And then she realizes why: because it's easy.

It's easy because Mark, ever the consummate competitor, doesn't compete with her. It's easy because Mark, ever the arrogant bastard, isn't threatened by her. Mark, on the other hand, is amazed by her. He marvels at her kindness, and obsesses over her beauty. He's also incredibly frightened, every inch of him is aware that he's reaching, and he is constantly sickened by the gnawing fear that she's going to leave him, vulnerable and alone.

The problems come with sex, as they always do.

Two months into their quasi-relationship they cave, and suddenly the barriers they'd built to contain the guilt come crashing down.

They had a good thing, they both squander it.

He resumes sleeping with other women, more and more terrified with each thrust and each grunt that she'll leave him. She responds by becoming Derek. She throws herself into her work with desperation. When this yields dividends, it also drives the wedge between her and her husband deeper. Now Derek is jealous when she begins receiving national attention. He isn't there to celebrate when her articles get published. On the other hand, she's too ashamed to ask Mark to be there for her.

What was momentarily a relationship becomes an affair.

It's furtive and it's hot, but somehow it's less. Less than what they had before. Less than what they would be if it weren't for a stubborn little ring resting on her left hand. She misses him, and thinks the awkwardness, the guilt, might stop with the sex, but she also craves him and can't help herself. He makes her feel wanted, feel beautiful. He makes her forget that on her wedding day, her mom called her fat. She finds herself wondering sometimes, how it might have been different, how they could have had it all. Now she's torn in two and has to choose a half.

She tries to give him up. She tries to quit cold turkey like some sort of alcoholic, but she finds that it's physically straining not to be with him. Her body goes into epileptic shock when it lacks his and she's scared by how much she needs him. She finds herself dreading Derek's attention, wanting no part in their marriage.

It comes to her one day, a flash in the dark, a beacon of hope—divorce. She smiled when she thought about it, giddy with anticipation. She was going to get a divorce.

And I, will stumble and fall.

She tells him the news in the brownstone that she and Derek share, divorce, I'm getting a divorce. He stares, gapes for a moment and then breaks into a grin. He picks her up and spins her around and around through the air.

They're happy for about an hour, and then Derek walks in, catches them in the act. He walks out.

The silence is suffocating, and suddenly she isn't thinking about divorce. Suddenly she's feeling it, feeling physically divorced, like a chunk of her had been ripped out of her body. And then Bizzy's judging voice floods her mind, and chirps at her from every direction. Montgomerys don't cry. They DO NOT get divorced.

It never occurs to her that Bizzy isn't a Montgomery. It doesn't register that her mother is in fact, a Forbes. Suddenly, though, she's filled with a new urgency for preservation.

They try to make it work. They try hard, but she's terrified at every turn that the world (her mother) might find out about the infidelity. That Bizzy might see the horrific way she ended her marriage and disparage everything about her. It's hard for her to believe that this relationship with Mark is viable, that something good can come out of brokenness and shame.

When the stick turns blue it's too much to handle, the affair, the estrangement, and now the bastard child. She begins openly talking about abortion, feeling him out. He panics. He finds an on-call room and then another.

She catches him the third time, and doesn't say a word in response to his pleas. Instead, she walks away casually and numbly and walks and walks until she walks right into a clinic and asks for an abortion. He buys the Yankees onesie and calendar in an attempt to plead with her but the deed is done and her bags are packed. I'm going after him, she tells him. All he can do is shake his head.

Remember when you lost your shit.

It's been a disaster, the whole ordeal. Seattle was a whirlwind, and suddenly, after two wasted years, the most terrible and least fruitful, she finds herself in L.A. In the few years she's been there she's plowed through innumerable men and felt cheated by each experience. Kevin, Noah, Sam, Jake, were there more? She can't remember. They each hurt so much, each evidenced to her just how unworthy she was. Mark on the other hand, Mark moved on. Mark found love. Mark was happy. She had used him and discarded him and he had moved on. Why couldn't she?

When his plane crashes, she can only feel pity. Self-pity. She recognizes that in all her life, in spite of his philandering, in spite of his caustic, biting rejection of her in L.A., he was the only person who never idealized her, who never really used her for his own purpose. He loved her, and that was more than she could say about all of the others.

So she jumps on a plane.

He's mourning the passing of Lexie Gray when she arrives, he's hunched over in the hospital, and she's reminded of his mother's death. He doesn't look up when she sits down beside him, doesn't need to. He robotically puts his head in her lap and her right hand absent mindedly strokes his gray hairs.

It takes weeks but she doesn't leave. She couldn't if she tried. There's something so forlorn, so pitiful about Mark Sloan in mourning that draws her, magnetizes her. She's powerless.

They're at a coffee shop downtown one day. He's better, and he wants to voice his appreciation, but he can't find the words. Finally, he pieces together the first smile he's delivered in weeks and mutters, "Thanks."

She smiles back, and reaches a hand across the table. "Remember what you told me," she says, "after Derek left and I was distraught that my mother was going to kill me?"

He searches his brain to remember but she fills him in, "You looked right at me and said, 'Addy, it doesn't matter. I'm here.'"

She stops and slurps her coffee and puts it down with a resolute thud, "You're my best friend Mark Sloan. And I will always be here."

He thinks it's odd that she brings up that time after Derek had left. As a rule they don't talk about it, they cram a filter down their throat that catches any mention of it on its way out of their mouth. But they think about it all the time. It's tattooed on their frontal lobe.

In my mind I am in your arms.

When he starts to laugh again she thinks about leaving. She starts to pack and begins to map out a future, one that doesn't involve L.A., or Seattle. Bizzy is dead, and so New York begins to gleam again. She thinks she might be able to go back and remember everything they did without wincing.

He doesn't stop her, he's tired of trying but he's hoping that sooner or later she'll come to her senses, realizes that he needs her. That she's all he's ever needed. He helps her pack, barely, but he does and smiles politely at her as she leaves his front porch. She tries to take a step toward the cab, but suddenly it's overwhelming. Her baggage is too heavy, all of the baggage in her life is weighing her down.

He recognizes what is happening, and doesn't say a word. Instead, he walks over to her and helps her lift, taking her hand and leading her to the cab. When she gets in the car, he gets in beside her but she doesn't protest, she doesn't even dare to breathe.

And suddenly they are in New York together. Suddenly, they are both in New York, un-attached apart from their decades-long attachment to each other. They step into New York City, Addison with mountains of luggage and Mark with nothing but the shirt on his back. And with Addison, he smiles, he has Addison.

The End