A/N:

First of all, I'm so supersorry for not updating my stories regularly! But hang on, I hope to get there until Sunday.

This story is something that just so happened to pop into my head (yeah I admit to having dirty thoughts sometimes^^) and I somehow had to write it down.

For all you Addek shippers, I know I super suck for not even giving you an Addek story to pass the time, but if you are a bit like me you know you love Maddison too:)

Sorry for this jerky Derek! Breaks my heart too, but let's face it...well, you know:'(

Please, please review and tell me whatever you think of this story, that would be so nice!

And now, enjoy!


She walked out of the Brownstone, her slim figure covered in a long black coat, locked the door and walked over to the waiting cab. It was only 7 p.m. and already dark.

December in all its beauty.

He could tell that she was freezing when she got into the car, not knowing whether it was the empty house or the cold weather that gave her chills, and told the driver to turn up the heat.

He smiled at her, real, and she smiled back, fake. He knew that it wasn't his fault that she couldn't be happy right now, but he also knew that her mood would change during the evening, so he just squeezed her knee as a greeting and the driver started the car.

The thin blue fabric that peeked out from under her coat didn't match the blue in his tie at all, but that was okay, they weren't supposed to match.

The annual charity gala of New York's medical and social elite – and Addison Adrienne Forbes Montgomery Shepherd was one of the few persons to fit both criteria – took place in the Empire State Building as usual; something to be impressed by for the first time one was invited, before finding that it was just like any other charity event only with a better view.

A waiter took their heavy coats, guarded them to their table and removed the nameplate and the dishes next to Addison's seat. Her husband wouldn't come. Not that it was a surprise for anyone, people had gotten used to his absence this year. The Shepherds were busy people, rising stars on the medical horizon; it was rather the Forbes Montgomery in her that drove her to attent events like this one.

People didn't ask, everyone knew about the Montgomery-Shepherd-Sloan connection, the trio every hospital would like to engage, because they were pure cash, the East Coast's finest. So when Mark had replaced his weekly flavour with Addison for the first time in summer, everyone had seen his best friend's plea behind this. Dr Shepherd was a gentleman, he wouldn't give his wife to just anyone and this way nobody had to cope with the perfection that surrounded the Shepherds whenever they appeared somewhere together. Actually it was a relief.

They didn't notice the emptiness in her eyes, the desperation that grew while at the same time she got more and more used to this. Going with Mark. Dressing up for him instead of her husband. Having a spare place at their table.

He offered her his hand and she took it, her smile already more honest than before. At least he liked to dance and was good at it too.

A beautiful updo tamed her auburn hair, the blue dress made her blue eyes sparkle and he pulled her as close as possible between friends. She grinned slightly as she noticed his efforts to measure a friendly distance, but was also thankful that he did it. Unlike everyone else in this room she wouldn't have cared at this point.

They danced, listened to always the same people holding always the same speeches and danced again. Some people came up to Mark or Addison or both of them for a polite small talk without any significant content, causing them to exchange amused and bored looks. It was easy to feel light with him, to forget the ignorance that was her marriage and to feel alive and admired again.

Not that she wouldn't have given everything to be here with Derek, she probably would have. But it was so much easier to just go with the flow and shine for a moment than banging her head against the wall until she was numb – and, sad as it was, the latter somehow even felt like an understatement.

Mark gently stroked her back. That was the good thing about dancing, he could actually touch her a little more than just a little. And he always knew when she was drifting away from him. She looked up, a hint of guilt in her eyes. He never asked for anything, but thinking about her husband when he was the one holding her and making sure she wouldn't fall any deeper felt like cheating. And yes, she was aware of the irony.

They sat down when her feet couldn't handle the heels any longer and he took them in his lap, massaging with the exact right amout of pressure on his fingertips. Every surgeon had some kind of finger confidence, which was of course also very useful on various occasions outside the OR, but he had a real gift.

She bit her lip, trying not to moan and looked around for distraction.

It was after midnight and the room had emptied, but not much. The dancefloor was still filled with couples and the ones that didn't dance sat on their tables, lazily sipping on their drinks. Nothing had really changed, except that everyone was pretty much minding their own business, the time for polite conversations was over. Now one was either too tired or too drunk to chitchat or had already left.

"Wanna go home?"

No, she didn't want to go back into her big, dark and most likely empty house, but he wasn't asking that and they both knew it.

She let her legs slide down off his lap, touching the inside of his seines justlikethat, stood up and took his hand to help him up too. He took that as a yes and put one arm around her shoulders, noticing that they had gotten a lot bonier since he had first done this about 17 years ago.

Back then Derek would always give him a killer look when he touched the much-loved redhead for longer than a few seconds. It took him quite a while to accept that his best friend and his girlfriend were just friends. Now he didn't even look at her long enough to notice the weirdly placed bruises on her body or how they both walked awkwardly through the hospital being sore from fucking all night.

They got their coats and waited for a cab.

The first time she had thought that she should know better than ending up like her father and her brother, fullfilling a not so fancy family tradition among the Montgomeries. But he was Mark and she had done it anyway.

Now she didn't know any better. People say, everytime you sleep with someone you give a piece of yourself away. True, but he had given himself to her long before she had spread her legs for him, she had learned that over the past year. So maybe she was only giving him a little of himself back.

As soon as they entered his loft and he closed the door behind them with a kick – his hands were busy with her dress – the much praised sugery gods of the evening became just Mark and Addison, far beyond the friendzone.

He untamed her long hair and lifted her up, her legs around his waist, carrying her to the soon to be mess that was his bed and throwing her dress to the side, before pushing her into the pillows.

She pulled him close when their lips met, her fingers running through his hair down his neck and pushing the jacket of his tuxedo off his shoulders. He let go of her lips, allowing her to gasp for air, and attacked her jaw, neck and collarbone with kisses, slightly sucking a mark that wouldn't last the night.

The sound of tearing fabric filled the air and she thought it was her dress, until she realized that she was already in her underwear and a few buttons were dropping on her stomach.

He grinned. "Hey, that shirt was expensive..."

"I'm rich."

He paused a moment to look at her in his bed, her perfectly shaped body, her milky skin, her nipples that were obviously hard under the fabric of her bra, her already quite sexed up hair, her eyes...

He had never felt this way about anyone before. He wanted to tell her that she was so much more than just rich, but he knew that it wasn't his place. No matter what he would say to her, she wanted to hear all that from the more important man in her life. So he put his lips on hers again and hoped that she would at least feel the difference. The love.

He unclasped her bra and began to massage her breasts, sensing her leaning into it. His tounge circeled her left nipple, two fingers softly pinched the right one and she arched her back, breathing heavily. His hand trailed down her body, touching her onlysoslightly to drive her crazy, stopping at the edges of her panties and trailing them too.

She pushed against his fingers, he could feel her wetness through the silk and his own arousal growing even more, if that was still possible. She wanted to sit up to take his pants off already, but his hand sliding into her panties, two fingers dipping inside of her incapacitated her immediately. She moaned at the sensation of his thrusting and curling fingers, digging her own fingers into the sheets, feeling her body heating up rapidly. Her mind got cloudy when he added his tongue to his actions down there and he could feel her muscles tighten around his fingers. With the next few thrusts her orgasm hit her hard, yet he didn't stop anything too soon, wanting her to ride it out.

It took her a while to catch her breath again, but when she did she was back on track almost instantly. Her lack of need for recovery time was a first for him and he was sure even without his messy feelings she would be the best he'd ever slept with. What he wasn't sure about though was if Derek knew that he would probably never have sex like this again if he let her go.

She reached for his belt buckle and this time he let her handle it. She wasn't rushing anything, opening the button and zipper of his trousers very thoughtfully, pulling them down as slowly as possible. He had a hard time to hold his hips still, knowing that she would keep teasing if he showed too much reaction.

She would have stroked him, but doubted that it would do her any good at this point, so she just let him push her into the pillows again. He slid into her in one fluid motion, she was wet enough, and they both gasped at the sensation of their connecting flesh.

He let her adjust a moment before thrusting in an increasing pace. Her hips met his movements and they easily found a rhythm. They always did. Her fingernails dug into his sweaty back and she bit her lip. He muffled the sound of her moans with his lips crushing down on hers, but had to groan himself when her legs around his waist pushed him deeper. The air was thick with their mixed scents, somehow bittersweet as if it wanted to match their...well, relationship.

He felt her muscles clenching again and the sensation of his hot release inside of her drove her over the edge with him. He collapsed on top of her carefully, feeling her fingers on his scalp, both of them panting, trying make up for the last thirty seconds when they didn't breathe poperly.

"Thank you." Her warm breath tickled his ear. He grinned. She always looked so amazing after sex, radiated this special kind of feminine warmth that never failed to surprise him, because, yes, she was a very feminine woman, but she also was such a hardcore surgeon from bitchy Conneticut.

He tucked an auburn strand behind her ear and kissed her, feeling her unsteady response. He knew that she didn't want to know how he felt about her, that she wanted to believe he treated every girl like this. But he couldn't repress this kind of little gestures that told her otherwise.

They just lay there next to each other for a while, thoughtfully staring at the ceiling, before she got up, picking up her clothes on her way to the shower.

"You could stay, you know..." He tried to sound casual, not willing to reveal how much he actually wanted that.

She turned around and smiled a weak apology, then the bathroom door closed behind her. She didn't bother to look in the mirror. That didn't really concern her anymore. When she was with Derek there was the indifference and when she was with Mark there was the shame not to be able to cope with Derek's indifference in another way.

The dripping water removed him from her skin, but that was all it could do. If it could have infiltrated her veins maybe then it would have been easier to go back to her husband, whom she loved, goddamnit!

Mark was like a drug. For now he would flow inside of her and she was okay and strong and ready to face her duties again. Only in a few days she would wake up with a cold turkey even worse than the last one and it would make it impossible to handle any verbal slaps about work and brains and all this stuff that seemed so much more important than her.

Strange as it was, she somehow knew that Mark felt the same way. It wasn't just little romantic Addie in her, who told her that. Something was screaming, trying to reach her, but she pushed it away everytime she put her wedding ring back on. People couldn't build a relationship on being each other's drugs. That was ludicrous. Forbses didn't do that.

Mark had already called a cab when she came out of the bathroom looking almost like when she had come out of the Brownstone a little eternity ago. He was eating a cookie and insisted that she took one for the ride too. She didn't even have to ask, as soon as she took a bite she knew that Carolyn Shepherd was responsible for them.

"See you tomo-...later." His gaze was copying her image into his brain and he went to bed again instead of walking her to the door, but that was okay.

She had almost missed the house when she got out of the cab ten minutes later. How strange it looked with light inside.

"Hey, how was the gala? I just stopped by to take a shower and change clothes between shifts..." Derek hurried around in their bedroom, fighting first with his watch then with the buttons of his shirt, when she came upstairs.

"Like always, you know..." And – like always – it ended two hours ago, you know...? Not that she wanted to get caught (or did she?) or hurt him, but at this point his ignorance was just unbelievable.

"Can you just help me with these?" He was still fumbling with his buttons and she did.

"How can you operate, when you can't even button up your shirt on your own?" She raised one eyebrow.

He gave her a warning look. Not necessary. She knew she was crossing a line lecturing him about his work.

"I'm serious, Derek, when was the last time you, I don't know, slept?"

"Just let it go, I don't want to fight, alright?"

Yep. He would be late for work then. "I'm just saying, that-"

"Let it go!" When did he start to raise his voice against her so easily?

He went downstairs to grab his coat and was about to leave the house, when she heard him coming upstairs again.

"Look, I'm sorry, Addison, I'm just stressed out at the moment." Understatement of the century.

He pecked her lips and grabbed his purse from the dresser. Of course he wouldn't come back just to apologize for shouting at his wife, shame on her for thinking something like that even for a second.

"You taste an awful lot like mom's cookies." He grinned at her, proud of himself for being so attentive. "I didn't know we still had any..."

We don't.

"Anyway, see you at work." He waved and disappeared around the corner.

Yeah, see you, Dr Shepherd, and make sure to tell Derek that Addie said "hi".