Not A Consolation Prize
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Addison and Derek
Spoilers: 2x18
Summary:None of what they had done helped them any. Their marriage was still crumbling down around them and maybe it was time to face facts. They were over unless one of them did something to stop it.
Disclaimer: I do not own Grey's Anatomy.
The day had been absolutely terrible. A horrible day. It sucked. There were bad days, crappy days, terrible days, and then days like this one. It basically blew. There was not one good thing about this day. Not one.
Mark had arrived in Seattle today.
Mark.
Mark.
The last person on this planet he would ever want to see in his entire life. The one person he would do anything to have to never deal with ever again. The supposed best friend of his. He never wanted to have to see that man's face or hear his voice again.
Never again.
He honestly hated Mark's existence and the fact that he was arrogant enough to show up here after all that had happened.
Derek breathed out a frustrated sigh and ran a hand through his thick, unruly hair. He was lying in his bed with a medical journal on his lap. He had given up reading about the latest breakthrough in neurosurgery about an hour and a half ago.
Mark was supposed to be his best friend. Best friend was something Mark could just not fathom, apparently. Nope, that was way outside of Mark's atmosphere. Totally incapable of anything friendly at all.
How could Mark have done this to him? What was the reason? What was the explanation?
Did he want to know if there was one? And if there was, did he want to know what it was? What the answer was to that heartbreaking question? That terrifying question. Did he need the answer to it?
Derek blew out another frustrated sigh and glanced toward the window.
He honestly did not know if he was ready for that. For that conversation which more than likely would end up being a confrontation between two former friends. But then again, given what Mark did was he ever a friend?
He had thought, yes but maybe he was wrong. He felt like the more time went on the only place he wasn't wrong was inside the operating room.
Everywhere else, he was wrong and he second-guessed himself like he had never before in his life. Every decision he made he questioned.
Was it right? Was it wrong? Would he regret it later? Would it make him happy? Would it make others happy? Did any of it even matter?
And all of those thoughts came back to one woman, Addison.
Addison Forbes Montgomery Shepherd.
His wife of eleven years and anniversary number twelve was coming up soon. She was the most amazing woman he had ever known other than his mother. From the moment he had seen her, he was mesmerized by her. Everything about her had him in awe of her. He doubted there was anyone in the world as incredible as she was. No one compared to her and he had known that she was the woman he was supposed to be with for the rest of his life.
Derek sat up a little straighter in bed and looked around the room before glancing at the window again. He cracked his knuckles in frustration.
When they had been dating she was his sole focus. Cindy Crawford could have walked by him and he would not have noticed at all because she wasn't Addison.
Addison was his girl. She was his world, his whole damn life. The smell of her hair, the soft feel of her skin underneath his fingers, the sound of his name on her lips. Derek absolutely loved everything about her.
It had been a no-brainer when he made the decision to ask her to be his wife. There was no other choice for him. He would rather spend time with her than doing anything else. He would have even chosen her over any surgery he was asked to be a part of. She was the most important thing.
The day she had agreed to be his wife was one of the best days of his entire life. The only days that could top it were their actually wedding day and any day in the first few years of their marriage. He took comfort in her arms and the feeling he got when she smiled at him.
That beautiful smile. It made his heart skip a beat. She had that affect on him.
Derek pushed the magazine off of his lap and swung his legs over the side of their bed. He stretched arms over his head and ran his hands over his face before letting them fall to the side.
He stood up and looked out the small window of the air stream trailer. His blue eyes tried to search the darkness but saw nothing. He sighed and moved toward the kitchen.
Derek wasn't sure when things in their marriage started to change. It was a gradual thing or was it? It wasn't sudden or was it? He was that unsure of how things had changed or when they had changed. It wasn't that he did not love Addison… he never fell out of love with her.
He never woke up one morning and said to himself that he no longer loved her. That she was no longer the center of his world or that she was no longer the most amazing woman he had known. It wasn't like that but it must have seemed that way to her. It must have seemed to her that he just stopped caring for her as his wife.
He never meant for it to happen that way. He never meant to imply that she wasn't important to him anymore. He never meant to hurt her or to not be there for her.
However, he thought that he had time. The rest of his life. Their life together to have dinner dates and birthday parties. To sit by the fire and watch movies, to wake up and shower together and have a coffee together over their morning paper.
So since he had all of that time, he wanted to focus on his work. He wanted so many things for himself as a surgeon. He wanted to be good at his work. Derek had never wanted to be anything other than a surgeon and he wanted to focus on that. Derek wanted to challenge himself and make his mark on the medical community. All the while he just assumed that Addison would be there with him, wait for him to get that part of his life straightened out.
He kind of assumed that was what the vows meant.
Derek slammed one of the cupboards shut and finished making himself a cup of tea. He stirred the spoon around a couple of times before tossing it in the sink. He ran a hand through his hair again and turned toward the small table.
He sat down and placed the mug in front of him and he watched the steam come off of it and float toward the ceiling. He sent a look out the window again.
Derek never meant to hurt his wife in any way. He never meant to cause her any pain. It was never supposed to be that way and he never meant to say that word today.
Obligation.
He had never meant to say that. It wasn't supposed to come out of his mouth like that. But he had been blinded by his anger for Mark that he had lashed out at his wife in the process.
That look on her face was haunting him. It was a look of such shock and heartbreak and pain. It disgusted him that he had put such a look on her beautiful face. But it wasn't like he could take it back now. He had said the word and she had heard it.
Derek sighed again and glanced at the clock on the wall of the trailer. It was pushing eleven at night and he had yet to see his wife.
He was a lot of things, stupid was not one of them. He knew why Mark had come to Seattle and it was not for their friendship or to apologize for his betrayal. Mark had not come for forgiveness or any surgery.
Mark had come to Seattle to take Addison back to New York. He had come to claim her as his own and whisk her away from the rain and hell of Seattle Grace's gossip machine. Mark had come to take her away from the tiny trailer and bad coffee of the hospital.
And Derek was petrified that he may have succeeded.
Because Addison never came home.
End.
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