Author's Notes: So this is my first attempt at fan fiction ever, lol, so feel free to judge. It's not the greatest, if any good at all, but it's been sitting on my computer so I thought, why not.

Pre-Seattle Addison/Mark. Not much else to it. XD

Disclaimer: DONT OWN GREY'S ANATOMY!!!

Addison Lies

Late February came with promises of early spring showers and fierce winds that beat angrily on the window glass of his 15th story apartment. Addison had once complained about the city's cold air stinging her cheeks, as they wandered the frosted streets back home from a nearby Greek restaurant. After ignoring a couple of whiny remarks, Mark had pulled her into the lamplight, skillfully wrapping his black wool scarf around her neck and cheeks. He laughed wholeheartedly when her protests were muffled by the fabric covering her mouth, and pretended not to notice the annoyance he saw in the glare he received from her eyes – the only feature of her face left uncovered. He then replaced her crème colored cashmere beanie with his Fair Isle hat, tugging the ear flaps as he cupped her clad cheeks and planted a lingering kiss on her forehead.

"There," he grinned, obviously proud of his work, and snaked his arm around her waist. Dragging her closer to him, he guided her down the alley they discovered to be a helpful shortcut during the impossible winter blizzards.

The two months he had Addison with him now felt like a stolen chapter from of someone else's life. Something he couldn't keep; a fleeting glimpse of an eternity that belonged to someone else, someone better, someone that deserved her.

He used to think he could make her happy, and he found hope in her smiles; in the way Addison rubbed her eyes in the morning when he woke her up with an Eskimo kiss; in the way she'd sneak up behind him and cover his eyes before whispering into his ear, "Guess who?" He'd always read off a series of names before grabbing her arms and tugging her in front of him, tickling her sides while muffling her laughs with forceful kisses as she squirmed in his arms. He used to think it could be enough.

But as the ice and snow on the sidewalks slowly melted, mixed with dirt and transformed into mud, the very aura of his apartment seemed to change with the weather; it grew gloomy and desolate.

It had startled him the first time, and he had tried to comfort her, confused about what could have caused her sudden outburst of tears. They were lying in bed, he exhausted from a hectic day at work and her from being called in for an emergency at 3AM the night before. The evening hadn't been different from any other – they had left the hospital together, ordered take-out upon her request, and fell into bed. Mark had just begun to give into sleep, with his body comfortably curved around hers and his hand possessively caressing her thigh, when he heard the quiet sniffs and whimpers. Puzzled, he lifted his head to look at her face, wincing at the tears overflowing her eyes and descending onto the soaked spot of her pillowcase.

"Addie?" he whispered, tracing light circled through the fabric of her pajama bottoms and watching as she squeezed her eyes shut and another tide of tears rolled down her cheeks.

"Baby," he helplessly attempted once more, pressing his lips to the delicate flesh behind her ear, "tell me?" When she didn't, Mark's mind began to race as he quickly tried to remember her scheduled surgeries, which he had read off the board, for any clue that would lead him to figure out what had upset her. But there was nothing he could pin point, and he knew she would have told him if an operation had gone wrong. Addison's breathing fluttered, building up to a releasing cry that was now more clear and defined, and punctuated by the shaking of her body.

Mark quickly sat up, and looked down at her. Curled up in the middle of a king sized bed, she had never looked so small. It was one of the times he realized that he himself, the one who claimed to know her best and see through every mask she attempted to put on, often mistook the image she always tried to uphold, for reality. But beneath the brilliant smiles and wise remarks, hundreds of heels whose designer names he couldn't even pronounce correctly at times, she was simply Addie. His Addie. It was his Addie that was clutching the white sheets in her fist so desperately, twisting, trying to burry her face into the pillow and drown out her sobs. This was not Dr. Addison Forbes Montgomery-Shepherd. This was Addie, stripped down to her soul, bare and vulnerable, her once sharp edges dull, chipped away by every night spent alone, every hurtful word, every pain inflicted upon her by those who refused to see past the shiny persona she insisted of hiding behind.

Sighing, Mark closed his eyes, unable to think with the sound of her crying. He was panicking now, his breathing catching in his throat as he replayed the events of the day. Surely he would have noticed if something seemed wrong, he always did. Had he said something hurtful? Was there a new rumor sweeping the hospital? Did it have something to do with Derek? It couldn't be, not now, not when everything had been going so good. He chased the thought out of his mind, reminding himself that he and Addison were in a good place, they were progressing; she had taken off her rings about a month ago, he didn't even notice until he found them tucked behind the books stacked onto the windowsill of his living room.

After a few minutes, Mark finally laid back down, his attempts at comforting and calming her going unnoticed and disregarded. Addison gave no response, no stimulating sigh when he stroked her hair out of her face and trailed a string of gentle kissed from her collar bone to her shoulder. No answer to her name. No stir when he begged her to look at him. His last vain attempt at soothing her was reaching for her hand, which he found cold and lifeless, her thin wrists limply giving into his pull but failing to return the grip.

He couldn't feel her. He couldn't do anything but listen to her hiccups and occasional sniffs and gulps, and it scared him half to death.

She looked so fragile and breakable, and it was the first time Mark realized he wasn't sure if he could trust himself with her. He wasn't sure if he could allow himself the chance to hurt her, afraid that she wouldn't survive another heartbreak. But as the hour hand of the wall clock slowly slipped onto the other side of midnight and he felt Addison's breathing even beside him, Mark knew the thing that terrified him most, was waking up without her.

Releasing a breath of relief, he pulled the covers higher onto their bodies, and encircled her waist with his arm, kissing her auburn hair as he whispered into her ear what would become his mantra for nights to come. "Don't give up on me, Addie."

When morning arrived, he awoke to Addison's shuffling around the bedroom as she always did, hurriedly laying out the day's outfit at the foot of the bed. Mark sat up, squinting at the light pouring in from the bathroom.

"Good morning honey bunch," Addison smiled sweetly when she saw him watching her through the dark, "I'm making scrambled eggs." But Mark could care less about food as she wandered towards the bed to kiss him, and he framed her face with his hands before she could pull away, studying her closely as her grin fell solemn. She was acting as if it was a regular Wednesday morning, as if he hadn't spent the night waking up gasping from dreams of suitcases and empty closets, and images of red curls disappearing behind corners before he could catch up.

"Ads," he pleaded when she braced herself on the edge of the bed and began to pull away. But her gaze quickly faltered, and she pushed off his chest this time, hard enough for him to succumb and release her.

"Addison," he called out again, his voice firmer as he slipped out of bed and followed her into the kitchen. The smell of scrambled eggs and coffee seeped into him, and he furrowed his eyebrows while watching her take two coffee mugs out of the cupboard, completely ignoring his presence. Her hair was curled and pulled back into a ponytail, her long legs clad in a pair of black pin-stripe trousers, her white blouse still waiting to be buttoned up and tucked in.

For a second he wondered if he had imagined it, if Addison's tears were simply a fragment of the dreams that had caused him to toss and turn throughout the night. But the look he saw in her eyes when she finally glanced up at him was more than enough to convince him otherwise. It had happened. Because it was a look of caution; warning. And he understood - they were not going to talk about it. This wasn't the weak Addison to whom he had listened cry herself to sleep last night. No, this was the strong, confident Addison that would not discuss what she wanted to believe was untrue. And in her eyes it was. Years of pretending had reduced her to this, gave her the ability to believe what she chanted to herself, and taught her how to will her mind to forget.

The second time it happened, Mark inhaled a gush of air and held his breath as he turned to face her. She laid on her back, staring up at the ceiling with her hand tightly sealing her mouth, a pool of tears filling her wide, panic-stricken eyes. If he was confused a few nights ago, he was completely aghast waking up to this once again. Racking his fingers through his hair, his eyes followed her gaze and for a while he lay still, mirroring her position. But sometime in those few miniature minutes, the stifled sound of her weeps found its way to his heart, and he was physically aching to a point where he couldn't lie silent any longer. He propped his head on a fisted hand, resting his elbow on the mattress and looked down at her.

"Addie," he mumbled sadly when she avoided his eyes, "tell me what it is." His questions and suggestions, like the ones from the previous night hung above them unanswered, untouched. Mark absently twirled a strand of red hair around his fingers, his hand trembling with every twist. He couldn't understand why she was acting this way, why she wouldn't let him hold her or comfort her, why for the second time she slipped into this frozen, detached state.

Mark released a heavy breath of air and pinched the bridge of him nose with his thumb and index finger, closing his eyes and trying to block out Addison's whimpers. Quiet as they were, to him they could have compared to the shrill screeching of a fire truck. If only he could get his thoughts straight, if only it wasn't two in the morning, maybe somehow he would be able to coax her out of this trance.

"Sweetie," he struggled to catch her stubborn eyes, his hand gripping her elbow and tugging it down, trying to pull her hand away from her mouth. "God, Addles just talk to me, please, I can't-, I don't know-," he shut his mouth when her only response to his pleas was to shut her eyes as tightly as she could and quicken her already wavering breathing. Mark threw his head back, defeated, praying for her to stop. He doubted his words were helping at all, if anything, they appeared to be torturing her. Wiping his face with his hand, Mark roughly fell back onto the bed, turning away from her as he clasped the pillow tightly, his heart pounding in rhythm to Addison's ill-patterned pants.

Within an hour, she had fallen asleep, and it pained Mark to know he had given in, laid back down and allowed her to cry. But he didn't know what else to do. He had always been the one to make her smile, to sweep her into his arms when she ran to his apartment the nights Derek stayed at the hospital, the one to count the freckles on her shoulder and give her as many kisses. It was him she would call when her and Derek had a fight, and the hundreds of yards of telephone wires shrunk to inches as he told her stories about high school, about Derek's and his prom nights and weekends at ski resorts. They were closer than ever, the streets and blocks separating the two of them disappeared when he heard her chuckle on the other end of the line. But she seemed a million miles away from him tonight, as she was lying down beside him.

It took another twenty minutes for Mark to fully relax, and with only a slight hesitation, he turned around and pulled Addison's sleeping body towards him, grateful that he was able to touch her, and hold her. Hugging her tighter, Mark buried his nose in her neck, inhaling her scent as his lips left numerous kisses on her skin between whispers of words muffled by his surrender to sleep.

Morning came like any other, and Mark opened his eyes to find Addison kneeling beside the closet, rummaging through shoeboxes as quietly as she could. In amusement, he watched as she pulled out the pair she had been searching for and stood up, gasping when she turned to find him watching her.

"You scared me," she admitted, returning the lazy smile he gave her before disappearing into the bathroom. Mark couldn't help but frown at the chaste greeting, one that differed from her usual sweet kisses and sugary words. She was keeping her distance, avoiding another confrontation; it wasn't difficult to see. Biting his lip, Mark waddled into the bathroom and wrapped his arms around her waist. She smiled at this and let her head fall back against his shoulder, tilting it sideways to catch his lips with hers. He kissed her back feverishly, as if afraid that in a second she'd slip back into near unconsciousness. It was enigmatical to think that she could so easily omit the events from the night and continue where they had left off before they retreated to the dark of the bedroom the previous evening.

"Addie?" he sighed into her mouth and she hummed a "Mmm?" without pulling away.

"I love you," he reminded her and she smiled against his mouth, turning around in his arms to face him. It wasn't the first time he had said it, but it still felt unreal to be able to say such things to her. Unconsciously, Mark backed her into the wall, the familiar feeling of her body against his sending chills down his neck as teeth clunked together, before he pulled back to look at her. This couldn't be the same person who was shaking beside him as a series of hushed sobs raked through her the night before. Mark's hands slithered down her arms and he entwined his fingers with hers. These couldn't be the same hands as the cold, impassive ones which he had held a few nights back. Yet it was all her, flesh and bone. They were the very same crystal blue eyes peering into him expectantly, which a few hours ago stared into the distance, shallow and almost painful to look at. Mark's fingertips ran up towards her face, and he traced the outline of her jaw with his thumbs, allowing his eyelids to droop shut when she sighed lightly and pulled his hips towards her.

"Addie," he breathed out, tucking a few strands of loose hair behind her ears and watching as her face suddenly filled with fear and caution. Slowly, she shook her head from side to side, keeping her eyes intently fixed upon his.

"Ads, you have to talk to me." He regretted them the moment the words were out of his mouth. Addison sank her teeth into her lip and her eyes skipped away, landing on some trivial object to his right as she began to pull away. "Babe," he insisted, gripping her forearms before she was able to make her escape, "Ads. Addie. Addison!"

Her back slammed against the wall and she was suddenly staring at him, looking into his very core with pain-stricken eyes. Mark released his grip, instead bringing his head to massage his temples while he cautiously took a step back and allowed her the space she needed.

"I'm sorry," she whispered weakly and wrapped her arms around herself as she locked her eyes on her toenails, and he could hear her rapid breathing slowing down.

"Yeah," he acknowledged, and left the bathroom without another word. It was all he could say. She refused to talk to him, she would barely even look at him, and although Mark wouldn't admit it – he was terrified. He was completely and utterly lost.

In the next two weeks, Mark had woken up to find Addison sleepless and wide-eyed as silent tears rolled down her cheeks. It had become almost routine, and Mark felt himself growing more numb with every one of his gestures left unanswered. Their mornings were devoid of any mention of the night's ongoing, their days ordinary and uncomplicated in comparison to the mess inside his head. He had never been consumed by such an overwhelming sense of debilitation. And failure. Failure because he was unable to protect her, wasn't equipped to help her fight whatever demons were bothering her, couldn't ease the pain she was going through.

Some nights, when Addison didn't make a sound and he could convince himself she was sound asleep beside him, Mark was able to force his mind back into uneasy slumber. Other nights, when it hurt too much to listen to her tiny weeps, he'd slide out of bed and leave the room, sometimes he sat out on the balcony and allowed the murmuring of the sirens and traffic in the distance drown out his thoughts. Other times, he ran the short distance to the bar down the street.

It was easy to find solace in alcohol, strange voices and strangers' mouths. He would drink himself into oblivion before following unfamiliar women to their apartments or hotel rooms. If only for a fleeting moment, he would be in control, wanted, and he wouldn't feel as useless as he had minutes prior. While lost in a tangle of limbs and skin against skin, Mark would avoid twisting his fingers into hair that would never compare to Addison's silky, thick, red locks. He'd try to ignore the lack of the sound of bubbly giggles when his fingers tickled a stranger's sides. Every curve of her body, every sound he elicited when his mouth fell upon her chest, was unfamiliar and off beat. Because the legs wrapped around his hips weren't his, the fingers that gripped onto his shoulders with painful force were not his, the lips suckling into his lower lips – they weren't his, because they weren't Addison. His Addison was at home, abandoned in the middle of a cold, hard bed and possibly scared out of her mind. His fingers were probably frantically wiping at red-rimmed eyes, his toes were probably freezing as she lay curled up under cotton sheets.

Mark would return home to find her asleep, and the silence in the apartment screamed as he laid down next her and brushed his lips gently against her temple. He never doubted Addison knew where he had gone, or what he was doing, and after a while he stopped bothering to take a shower before falling back into bed beside her. By then, he felt as empty as her eyes looked before he had left.

It was doomed from the start really, he later thought as he stared blankly at a hair clip he had discovered in one of his bathroom drawers weeks after she had gone.

"We're going to hurt each other," she had told him once as they lay in his bed. She had only been living with him a few weeks.

Mark kissed her forcefully on the forehead. "I'd never hurt you Addie," he promised tilting her chin up so he could look into her eyes, "I love you more than anything in the world."

At this she blinked, staring at him as if he had just admitted to not believing in gravity. "We hurt most, those who we love," she explained sadly, returning her head to his chest, "it will be meticulous, slow, and then one day we will open our eyes and see the damage, and it will be too late."

His fingers stroked her auburn hair as he listened to her speak. He would have never imagined how right she would turn out to be.

The twenty-five steps from the front entrance to the bedroom seemed to have stretched out for miles before Mark solemnly pushed open the door and stepped inside.

The alcohol had worn off by now, but he could still smell the cheap perfume that had rubbed off on him from the blonde he had been with.

A pang of guilt shot through him as he took in the bundle of sheets on the bed, underneath which lay an exhausted, sleeping ball of Addison. Within seconds he was kneeling beside the bed, smiling at the angelic expression she now wore only when finally lost in a peaceful sleep. Unconsciously, she wrinkled her nose when he lightly tapped it with the pad of his pinkie.

"Oh Addie," Mark sighed heavily, his eyes watering as his fingers traced a perfect row of soft eyelashes. He knew then, as he sank into bed and pulled her sleeping form into his arms, that she was going to leave him.

"I love you more than anything in the world," he chanted into her hair, letting a lone tear roll down his cheek and into the sea of red hair sprawled across his chest.

The next morning, he listened as she moved around the room, only opening his eyes when he was sure she wouldn't see. Bags and suitcases littered the floor, and Addison's frequent sniffs and sighs seemed to echo off the four walls surrounding them. Occasionally she would drop what she had been doing and disappear into the bathroom, turning on the water so her cries were not as clear. Sometimes she stayed for a minute, other times he could have sworn half an hour had passed before she entered the room again.

Mark wasn't quite sure why he didn't get up, didn't grab her when she placed a soft, trembling kiss on his cheek before leaving and taking all traces of her along. But it might have been the fact that before she had even got out of bed, she had unintentionally woken him up when she took his hand into hers and pressed her cheek into his palm.

"I love you more than anything else in the world," she had whispered, unaware of the tears gathering the corners of his closed eyes. "And I'm sorry, God I am so sorry," she croaked out, her own tears dampening his hand, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but I couldn't, I couldn't have a-, I couldn't be a-." Addison squeezed his hand while she gathered herself and whispered, "It's in the letter," before kissing his palm and sliding off the bed.

It was probably easier to walk away without looking back, without seeing what she was leaving behind, and in what matter. But had Addison turned around, she would have seen Mark staring blankly at the white washed ceiling above him, fists clenched and jaw tight, willing his eyes tear filled eyes to calm.

He didn't hear the door close and although a small part of him hoped to find her sitting on a kitchen chair when he walked out after two hours, he knew she was gone. Instead, he discovered a crisp white envelope propped against the telephone with his name written on it in her graceful hand writing.

Mark never wanted to become a father, never dreamed about building tree houses or attending ballet recitals. It wasn't in his future, as far as he was concerned. And it wasn't until he sat in the dark of his kitchen, hours after finishing Addison's letter, that the nauseating feeling at the pit of his stomach began to subside.

He related it to being kicked in the stomach, roughly and without warning. Only, whenever he's been hit, he has never shed a tear. He needed the respect, the upper hand, in high school, in college. But that night, it was like being stripped of all his dignity, al; his worth. His blood felt colder, his heart slower and the tears that cascaded down his cheeks left a burning path.

"Addison," he murmured into the dark, swallowing hard to rid his throat of the dry feeling, "what have you done?"

Yeah, I know the ending wasn't good but I was falling asleep and I just wanted to get it posted. / Anyway, please review. Even if it's bad, lol.