Thanks to McMuffin for beta-ing this.
Disclaimer- I don't own anything. Oh how I wish..
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Addison likes to believe that she did something right, that somehow her actions resulted in good, and that if you look past the obvious destruction, it was more so just a way to get them in a position to mend their lives back together in the first place.
She likes to think of it as a solution, rather than a problem. She thinks that if it were to never have happened, she would still be sitting alone in her living room eating dinner every night while Derek would be at the hospital.
Of course this isn't what she really thinks, but it is what she'll keep telling herself. Because that version, even if it is nothing more than a load of crap, sounds a hell of a lot better than the real one.
///
Naomi becomes the first person to tell her about the post-it wedding, and instead of her first thought being "how do you know?" it's more along the lines of "I need a minute."
Sometimes she goes and sits alone in her office the entire day to think. These days she believes, are the reason she can stay sane in LA.
///
She spends that night curled up in a blanket on Naomi's couch with a bottle of wine in her hand.
She finishes it on her own, with no problem whatsoever.
///
She ignores the concerned looks she receives from Violet, and the sympathetic ones from the rest of the practice.
She shrugs it off and assures them that she's alright.
For a while it works, and they seem to back off.
But one night, one phone call, was sure to throw that all off.
///
When her cell phone wakes her up at three in the morning with a familiar number, she assumes it's either Naomi or Violet, which explains why she picks it up and screams "I told you a thousand times already, I'm fine" into the phone.
The silence on the other end throws her off, so she decides to pull the phone away from her ear to check the number on the screen.
She reads them quickly, but still the whole moment seems to be moving in slow motion. The phone number, his phone number, was so familiar, so natural that she didn't even have to think about it. She apologizes to him, using the time as her excuse and asking him to continue.
He snaps back to reality and says he doesn't need anything, that he's sorry to wake her, and that she should get some sleep.
Derek was oblivious to, and Addison unfortunate to the fact that this would be the exact reason for the many sleepless nights to come.
///
After the divorce, Addison always secretly wished that somewhere down the road they could all be friends again. That they could all be them again.
When Naomi asks if she misses her best friends, she laughs and says no, not at all.
What Addison forgot is that Naomi was there when they were them and that it's nearly impossible for someone who witnessed it to believe that they can just forget about each other.
Addison panics, afraid that Naomi can see right through her and excuses herself from the room.
///
Once a month for the six, she receives the same call from Derek.
Every time he begins to tell her something and yet every time he stops himself, apologizes, and hangs up.
She begins to wonder what it is. At first it's just a few times a day, when she's alone in her office with nothing else to do. But as the days go on the calls become more frequent, and the suspicion grows, thus leading to robot-Addison forming.
She goes to work, meets with a patient (or on a good day, two) and goes home.
She doesn't socialize, she doesn't join them for lunch, and she certainly doesn't respond to the questions they ask her as she passes.
When Naomi really realizes something's wrong, is when she sneaks into Addison's office, hoping to catch her when she comes back from her patient. Instead, she gets Addison's ringing cell phone with a number she recognizes, yet can't place. She debates on whether or not to pick it up, but in the end decides it's safer to just write the number down and check it later.
///
It becomes routine, daily lectures from Naomi after her one-a-day patient leaves. And every time that Naomi sneaks into Addison's office, her phone rings.
After a week Naomi decides it might be okay to answer Addison's phone, I mean come on, she is her best friend.
Before she has time to reconsider the idea she answers, and with the one word of "hello" she knows who it is.
And even though she knows he's married, and that whatever they're doing probably isn't good for either of them, she thinks pride in the fact that she knows now that she was right.
They do miss each other.
///
The one hundred and twenty sixth call is different.
In fact, Addison knows, the second she picks it up, that something's different.
His voice is softer, but hurt, and Addison can tell just from that that he's been crying.
This time, Derek doesn't hang up.
Instead he says the one thing every girl wants to hear, "I just want you to know that I still love you, and that I always will."
It catches her completely off guard, and the only thing can say is "Why? Why now?"
This time, Addison is the one to hang up. And that night she throws her phone into the other room, because the last thing she needs is his number flashing on her screen all night.
It becomes apparent to her, somehow, through all the denial and assurances made to her coworkers that she's not alright after all. And that once again, Derek Shepherd is turning her into a person she hates.
///
For a week, he doesn't call.
Addison tells herself it's for the better, but what she really means is that she misses him.
On the ninth day, she receives a call.
This time though, the number on the screen, yet familiar, isn't Derek's.
She knows right away that it's Mark.
What she doesn't know is why.
///
She asks him to repeat it three times, because honestly the words don't seem real. And he plays the part of her concerned ex best friend/lover/whatever when he tells her everything's going to be okay, and that she's going to be okay.
She screams at him, how is she suppose to be okay when a week ago he told her he loved he and she hung up on him?
And now,
Well and now he might die.
///
She finds the strength somehow to fly to Seattle.
Callie and Miranda meet her at the airport and the first thing Addison says is "how bad is it?"
The looks on their faces say everything.
///
The words dance around in her head all day, "brain tumor" and "inoperable" are certainly two things she could go without ever hearing again.
Mark tells her that he didn't tell anyone about it, and that the way they found out was from him passing out during a surgery.
Addison freezes.
The pieces of the puzzle begin to get put together in her mind as she remembers the calls, That was what he kept trying to tell her, that was why he told her he wanted her to know he'll always love her.
She chokes back her tears when he tells her he could go anytime.
///
The next day is predicted to be his last, and she spends the entire morning in her hotel room crying. Mark calls her though, and basically forces her to come say goodbye.
She's apprehensive at first, but agrees to in the end.
///
The hospitals quiet, which scares her a little at first but not enough to take her mind off of Derek. She walks to his room slowly, having no idea what to say and also no idea what he's going to say to her.
It doesn't seem real, she feels as though she's still in LA sitting by the beach with Naomi, knowing that Derek's fine in Seattle with Meredith.
And as much as she knows it's going to happen, she still has a tiny bit of hope, that somehow, someway he'll be okay.
///
She walks in timidly, uncomfortable and eyes strained from crying she looks at him. He forces a smile, "Addison."
She shakes at the amount of weakness in his voice.
"I'm here, Derek."
"You know they say I'll probably die today."
"I'm so sorry, Derek."
"It's not your fault."
"You don't deserve this."
"No one does."
She walks closer and wraps he hand tightly around his, "I love you too, okay? I want you to know that."
She screams the second she feels his hand become still in hers.
It's not happening, she tells herself that it isn't happening because god can't possibly hate her enough to make her actually watch the man she loves die.
They come running in ten seconds later with the crash cart and Mark literally picks her up to get her out of the way. She smacks Mark's arms and tells him to save Derek, that he needs to save Derek.
He looks right at her and tells her he can't.
She gives up and falls back into his arms, and for the first time in four years, she breaks down.
///
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