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In the Middle of This Nowhere
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A/N: See bottom of page.
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"Too big," Addison murmurs, looking over at her husband who is absently staring at the wooden beams in the ceiling. Too big and she hates the master, the kitchen, and all of the outdoor space. They're standing in the middle of a 11,000 square foot monstrosity that reeks a little too much of her upbringing while simultaneously feeling like a bachelor pad and for the hundredth time in four days she contemplates hiring a new real estate agent. One that will actually listen. It'd be nice to have anyone listening these days.
Derek wraps an arm around her waist as they play the happy couple. "It's way too big," he says, like he thought of it first and its all she can do to not scream at either person in the carefully staged room. She feels like her head is going to explode when he starts talking about the way the kitchen has been laid out confusingly.
She liked this location, hates that she feels like she is in a concrete bunker, and their agent, Jack, thought this would remind them of New York. Of home. Not that she wants that reminder.
She's been in Seattle for less than week and is already not impressed.
Derek loves the houses out by the water, mentioned something about getting a boat. She thinks he just wants the chance to take a ferry everyday. They agreed to disagree seeing as it would take too long to get to work to properly consider.
Jack mentions something about putting an offer in on this relic from the 1900s and Addison says she'd like to take some time and they'll get back to him later today.
On her way out she's already contacting Savvy for a different recommendation.
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It's the most time they've spent with only each other in months, maybe years. His skin is itching, she can tell. The way he keeps playing with his tie, pokes at his dinner, looks around helplessly for the waiter to make conversation with.
And it was his suggestion, going out to dinner. Trying to find some new places to love. But the truth is, she doesn't love it here, and doesn't think she ever will. It's damp, and she's been sick already since their arrival. The traffic is horrific while walking isn't much of an option either, not in the same way New York was, and the only thing she's enjoyed, a small french bakery, is hard to get to and cramped by tourists visiting from the market. She hasn't found a decent salon, shopping is challenging, and the parks are nothing in comparison.
They moved here to work on it. To save themselves. Their shell of a marriage.
That's what she thought.
That's what he said when he carefully propositioned her. Sat her down with a glass of red, turned off the TV, stole the journal she was reading. He'd already put out feelers in Boston, Los Angeles, and Denver. Everyone wanted them, he said, it'd be a fresh start.
She told him he could just try and come home more than once a week. Try and make it to any of the plans she had made for them. Try and not chastise her like she didn't know what was going on with the practice. Stop sending Mark as a placeholder. Answer his phone when Kathleen called and save her from that weekly conversation and head shrinking.
Any of those things would've been as effective.
But he wanted Seattle.
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"This is nice," Derek sighs, wrapping his coat tighter around himself. It's May but there's no sign of spring or warmth.
Addison leans into the railing, losing her balance. The Space Needle is no Empire State Building. The gradual swing of something unsteady, the wind, she can't take much more.
"Viewfinders," Derek points out. Proud of himself for remembering that she loves them.
"I think I'm going to be sick," Addison replies, eyes beginning to frantically search for the nearest exit.
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The only thing that's been a delight is the ease with which she's worked her way into Seattle Grace. She didn't have the fondest memories of Richard from New York, but they're past it and she's found she rather enjoys teaching. Kepner, however, she could do without. There's just something she can't put her finger on about the woman that keeps her on edge. In fact, all of the residents are awful in their own way, except Yang who has made it abundantly clear she isn't entertaining anything but Cardio, not that Addison didn't try and sway her with intriguing cases and puzzling surgeries requiring the most delicate and dedicated of touches the one god forsaken week she was assigned to her floor.
The greatest surprise is how hard Derek works at keeping up appearances. This hospital is smaller than the one they occasionally shared in New York. They see each other more often. Run into each other in hallways and he pecks her cheek, they get coffee together before meetings, once he even sent her flowers for seemingly no reason.
Her office faces a courtyard and she had heard the murmurings of how perfect they were. Of how amazing it was that they were still so in love after all those years. It's hard to shatter people's reality. She's learned that much in life. Plus she's an excellent secret keeper, it's practically the only thing her parents passed on in their wayward teachings.
She didn't necessarily hate that he had spent some energy on her either. It's better than New York where he used to speak to her about surgeries in random elevators, chart anywhere but in his office where she could find him, and at the height of her despair when he would page other surgeons in place of her, he said because he knew she had plans later and that it might interfere. So, he could remember, he just couldn't bother to show up, she had whined at Mark one evening at a charity event. He left fifteen minutes later with some blonde and she wound up miserably drunk and stumbling towards her front door three hours later.
The dark part of her enjoys how Derek has had a harder time fitting in here, how no one seems to recognize his brilliance or patient care. Ellis is always pushing him for more, and even though he would work twenty plus hour shifts before they moved, he now seems tired and forced for inspiration. He used to talk all the time about clinical trials and if he could just get the backing for this and that, but Seattle has stolen that spark.
Even his hair seems flatter than usual in the dampness. Payback is nice.
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It's still too big. The house, the one they settle on. It's blue with dark trim, white doors and windows. It has too many bedrooms, a backyard for their new gardener to enjoy, and a guesthouse that will never get used. Once Bizzy found out she was moving to the West coast she was practically ostracized, not that she was exactly on speaking terms with anyone in her family except her brother. She knows Derek's family will inevitably make an appearance, but she's holding that off for as long as possible by not answering calls or responding to emails.
"Which rug do you like?" Addison asks, placing one of a thousand magazines in front of Derek's face, annoying him as he tries to read the paper at the kitchen counter. They're missing a lot of furniture, Derek wanted a fresh start in a new town, Addison wanted to redecorate.
"I don't care," he grumbles and then looks up apologetically. Sometimes, she senses, he knows he's illogically unreasonable, a complete ass to his somewhat undeserving wife. "You pick, you're better at this."
Addison sighs and closes the magazine. He didn't really help with the brownstone, but he at least placated her. She saunters off, briefly happy that the house is big enough to lose herself in, not that he's going to come looking.
In the end, after only one more attempt to engage him, she hires a designer and a decorator who fight with each other and a bunch of moving companies because she says she is in a hurry, for what is unknown. Two weeks after it's all done, Derek tells her he likes it while she's brushing her teeth over the sink, even leans in for a minty kiss.
There's a lot of white and gray and pops of yellow and blue and it all might be more feminine than if he had actually gave a damn.
She doesn't reply.
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"It's a trailer," Addison comments, carefully stepping a heel down into the wet, soggy ground. It's rained for three days straight at this place.
"You hate it, I knew you'd hate it."
"Good job." She throws her hands in the air. They've known each other for a long time, she's not sure what he's playing at here though by calling out her reaction. Anyone could guess she would hate this after a ten minute conversation.
"Jack found it, come in, I want to show you something."
The tin can is freezing, but for some reason there's bedding and Derek's fishing rod and other oddities he must have dug out of the boxes that remain in their detached garage that shes grown to loathe. She has no idea when he did that. Or how he managed to hide this. Or why he and their ridiculous ex-real estate agent now seem to be best friends.
"I figured," he begins, spreading papers over the tiny table, "we could build our own house. A bigger office for you, make something we really want, out on this beautiful land."
She peers at the blueprints, the pencil marks he's made, the scribbles in the margins. She used to study with him, his chicken scratch, they shared notes. That's still the same, one of the few things that's withstood a decade of their relationship. It soothes her in a way that almost nothing can these days. Unchanged, unlike so many other things, she breathes it in. "It's almost an hour from the hospital."
"We're department heads, our lackeys can cover," Derek shrugs, zipping his jacket. "Come on, let me show you around."
She feels a spark as he grabs her hand, a brief brush of fingertips. There's no one around to witness the display, the gesture. It's not for show. It sets her gut ablaze.
They kiss by the river, under a large pine tree, rain slipping between green needles and landing on their spontaneous embrace.
And she thinks, as he tugs on her jacket to bring her closer, that maybe this is what they needed. The dewy, chilled air. The deep cover of the forest, the rumblings of the stream to her left. Maybe they needed Seattle, maybe he was right.
"We're going to want a bigger bathtub," she tells him that evening, nestled to his chest, his fingers working through her hair absentmindedly. "And I'm not staying here ever again."
"We'll see about that," he says softly, grinning. "I have ways of getting you out here."
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"I'll be gone for three days," she announces, the top of his head barely visible beyond the barrier of the shower.
The thing about carelessly disappearing from a town you've established yourself in is that it leaves a lot of loose ends. She's been back and forth for the last month, trying to hand off patients, finishing with those she couldn't bare to disappoint. There are a lot of neurosurgeons, she told Derek. There aren't a ton of people with her qualifications. There aren't with his talent either, but he doesn't mention otherwise surprisingly. It's one of their constants- who is more important in their field, and comparatively which field is more important on any given day or case.
It's a delicate dance, the back and forth. She can tell that Ellis' patience, however, is wearing thin.
She estimates about three more trips before she should be able to handle everything via email and phone calls. Derek practically ran from his practice, his best friend left in the lurch, the abstract look of horror when Derek gleefully announced their almost immediate departure.
Mark.
Derek seems content to throw away everything that happened before New York, including people. She's never been able to escape like that. She clings, desperately, to people who don't deserve it. She recognizes this, but it's not easy to fix.
"Ok," she hears him yell, turning the water off and reaching blindly for a towel.
"We should redo this bathroom," Addison mentions offhandedly, looking around at the abundance of cerulean tile. It's not distasteful, it's just so off from everything else in the home. She left it because it was in the basement, next to the gym, in Derek's man cave area.
"I like it," he huffs, clearing water out of his eyes. "You staying with Mark? The realtor said we have walk throughs this weekend."
"Yes," Addison replies. She doesn't really have an interest in selling their brownstone. Property is always a good investment, she reasons, but Derek disagreed. They can't seem to arrive on the same page of anything so she's humoring him by allowing strangers to traipse around something she lovingly thought would be their home for years to come.
She suggested couple's counseling as part of their move. To try and rectify the fact that he hates talking to her, and that she's grown to resent him breathing in the same room as her.
They've gone once in an entire month of living in Seattle. Derek thinks his therapy is fishing, she thinks it is ignorance.
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"God, I missed you," Savvy exclaims, waiving the bartender back over for a refill.
"I know," Addison moans. "You should move to Seattle."
"What's in Seattle?" Savvy looks as disgusted as she feels about it.
"Rain. Me?" Addison shrugs, catching the eye of the gentlemen in the back booth by the door.
"Weiss would die."
"People need lawyers everywhere," Addison reminds her dearest friend.
"Let's go dancing, it's been forever," Savvy exclaims, dragging Addison up out of her seat before she can object. She loves Savvy's spontaneity, her sometimes reckless need for fulfillment and joy.
She mentions it once, in the back of a cab. They do talk about their relationships, their husbands. Her life here is privy to the mistakes, the fights, the bitterness that seems to all be bottled up in their new home.
"You guys will be ok, you're Addison-and-Derek," Savvy assures her.
And she thinks for a moment, that it could be true. Except the fiery wreck she sees far off in the distance waiting for them.
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"I'm lonely Derek," Addison says quietly as she sits next to him on their couch, in front of a crackling, but still fake fireplace. The therapist said to share, to be honest. It's worth a chance.
"You have friends here, that Cardio doctor," he argues, moving imperceptibly away.
"You have friends here," she refutes. For some reason he really hit it off with Jack. Then there's the oncology doctor, and the anesthesiologist he plays basketball with on Thursdays. "Her name is Callie, I could invite her over," she mulls the thought, "Have you worked with her husband? Owen?"
"I don't think so," Derek replies, placing his book over his knee. This conversation isn't ending.
"They have kids though," Addison remembers.
"So?"
"So, they're probably busy."
"Yeah," Derek agrees, looking to the emptying glass of scotch in front of him for what she can only assume is an easy out of this.
"Richard lives in this neighborhood, that might be nice," Addison suggests.
"Ellis," Derek refutes. No ways he's having the chief and her bubbly family over for dinner.
"Maybe some other time, when we are settled."
"Yeah."
They return to silence, not unwanted, but unresolved, as so many things are. The fireplace pops and brings her attention away from Derek's three day stubble that he refuses to shave. He's always near now, more so than before, but she feels worse here. There's no one to share with, to complain about Derek's beard growing initiative, to plan weekends with, to explore the city with. After a lifetime of people being paid to be around and to care, Addison is acutely aware of when they don't want to be.
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At first it is a few random bouts of nausea, and she doesn't get sick frequently. Thinks it must be the anxiety of trying to run a business on opposite ends of the country, of trying to keep the facade of her marriage from cracking in their new place.
Then she finds herself strangely attached to a patient. A mother whose baby is not going to make it out of the woods. And there have been many of these, but the couple loves each other so much. They look so damn happy, she doesn't want to destroy them.
She waits an entire day, when she could've told them an hour after examining their child. It's just a feeling she gets with preemies. This one just on the cusp of viability, having extreme breathing problems, a heart malformation, and a body that just can't will itself to keep surviving.
They didn't do anything wrong, in the whole scheme of things. And she tried to prevent the labor from progressing, but she was only able to hold it at bay for so long. She reasons she likely feels guilty for not being able to do more, make more decisions before the baby had to fight out its chances.
Their boy, David, makes it two excruciating weeks in the NICU before giving up. Each day she leaves with a headache and a sense of impending doom looming overhead. When it finally happens, she locks herself in her office for three hours and pretends she doesn't hear her pager buzzing away in its drawer.
The final straw is the sheer exhaustion that has overwhelmed her the last two weeks. She blamed jet lag for as long as possible, and this taxing case, but even with a full eight hours of sleep she still feels like she needs a nap by three. And how in the world could this have possibly happened after eleven plus years of being so damn careful.
The annoying little lines signal her catastrophe into reality.
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Her skirt feels tighter than it should. Her heels are new and breaking in her feet hurts and makes her calves tightly wound. She just couldn't deal with the rain ruining her hair for another day in a row so it is pinned back, pricking at her scalp. Derek's bouncing his foot the way he does when he crosses his legs and it is driving her crazy.
She digs her nails into the side of the chair in the therapist's office and closes her eyes briefly. It's their second visit and she almost had to sacrifice an organ to get him to agree. Dr. Whitman is not without talent, but they aren't really playing fair, pretending like they don't know what is going on, how to talk about how they feel. And he is trying, she'll give him that, to pry them from their comfort zones, to get them to open up. To just get them to come back in a timely fashion has been a challenge for the poor man.
"That's all the time we have," he sighs. He's annoyed, she can tell. She's annoyed too, by Derek, by her clothes, by her sudden inability to tolerate the only thing she enjoys having for breakfast- beloved green juice.
"I'll meet you at the hospital," Addison explains, dodging out of the room.
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"Have you talked to him?" Addison asks nosily, peering over at Mark from her position on his couch.
"Yeah, a few times," Mark replies, taking a long pull off his beer.
"Don't you miss him?"
"He said the fishing is good there, said his cases are kind of boring, the Chief hates him, he's thinking about buying a boat," Mark informs her. She wants details. He's purposefully giving a high level overview so they can avoid discussing it further.
"We miss you," she reveals, peering at him glassy-eyed. And then thinks to correct, because there isn't a we anymore. She feels and thinks things, Derek feels and thinks other things. "I miss you," she relays instead, eyes threatening to topple her willpower.
"People change Red."
His smile is sorrowful. He doesn't recognize his friend anymore either, she can tell. He may have mentioned it a few weeks back when he got too drunk when they were all out and he threw up like a child all over the side of a cab.
"Sometimes I think he'd be happier free," she voices shakily, liquid courage in her addled brain, "that I should let him go."
He flicks on the TV, the Yankees are in spring training and he's missed his daily update.
She doesn't dare speak of it again.
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A/N: Hi!