very short, very sweet, very to the point. the basis: what if addison and alex had kissed in the NICU? that's about it.

-insert disclaimer of your choice here-

Addison stares off into space. Just a couple of hours ago (had it really only been three hours?) Alex had kissed her, while she was standing right here in this very spot. Or maybe she had kissed him. Had she been doing the leaning? She had been doing some of the leaning, that's for sure. But had she been the only one doing the leaning? She sighs in frustration. Why does it even matter? She shouldn't care who had been doing the leaning, because that means that she cares about the kiss, which she shouldn't. The thing is, though, that she does care. It's important to her that he was doing the leaning too. Because that means that these things that she's feeling (which she hasn't felt since… since… Derek really. Not even Mark made her feel this giddy), that means that these feelings are mutual. She doesn't want to care; he's an intern, her intern, for crying out loud. She shouldn't care. But she does. She racks her brain, trying to remember if he leaned in. She thinks he did. In fact, she's fairly certain of it. Or is that just wishful thinking?

"Oh." Addison whirls around at the sound of Alex's voice. "Dr. Montgomery." He sounds surprised to see her there.

"Dr. Karev," she greets him as normally as possible, pretending like her heart didn't just skip a beat or two.

They stand in silence. "How are you?" he finally asks.

What kind of question is that? How is she supposed to answer? Really. "Oh, I'm good. I'm all good," she replies too quickly. A little mortified and confused, but I'm all good, she adds in her head.

He nods. "Me too. I'm all… good."

"Good. That's…" she trails off.

"Good?"

"Yeah, good." The silence that follows is even more uncomfortable than the first. "Things make more sense when you're looking at a baby," Addison says, just to fill some space. "It's like suddenly you can see things clearer and understand things better. Plus," she rambles, not even sure of what she's saying, just talking, "they make everything seem a little better. You know, the first place I went the day after Derek left New York was NICU. It was peaceful. And just for a second, I understood. Even though that understanding hurt, it was nice to finally be sure of something; even if that was that my marriage was falling apart. And the thing was it was okay to be hurting there. Because the babies, they were there, so I wasn't alone, but they didn't try to make me feel better, or make me feel worse. They just were." Alex doesn't say anything, just waits for her to continue. "The nice thing about babies is that they're clean slates. They have infinite possibilities and clear consciences. They don't judge you and they love unconditionally. They're completely innocent. And they don't care that you're scary and damaged and you slept with your husband's best friend."

For the first time, he speaks up. "Addison…" he trails off, unsure what to say to make her feel better.

"You know, I've been wonder about something all afternoon. Did you lean in? Because I could have sworn you did. But maybe that's my imagination. I'm tired, it's quite possible that I could have imagined it. In fact, it makes more sense that-" she says, but is cut off.

"Addison, I leaned in. I leaned in because I wanted to. I sabotaged Sloan's coffee because I wanted to. I haven't done anything I didn't want to do. I wanted to kiss you, so i did." This time Addison is silent. "And if it's all right with you, I'm going to kiss you again. If it's okay."

It takes her a nanosecond to make up her mind. "It's okay."

So he leans in and kisses her and she thinks (and this thought really embarrasses her) that maybe, just maybe, this is what she'll be doing for the rest of her life.

reviews?

-Juli