Fall Down

Derek and he hadn't always been friends growing up, they started out as rivals and ended as rivals but in the middle… in the middle they had been friends. At least Mark liked to think so.

They hadn't gone into medicine together to stay together (why some friends did that, Mark would never understand). Instead, they went into medicine separately and it brought them closer together.

They had been roommates together and then interns together and then they started falling apart. Derek hadn't understood how making someone look beautiful was more important than fixing one's brain and Mark hadn't understood how Derek could think that it was all about making someone beautiful.

It wasn't the first time he had noticed Derek didn't see in layers, but it was the most prominent.

While medicine wasn't something they had wanted together, Addison was. They had both wanted her. (He saw the problem as that he never stopped wanting Addy and Derek had). She had been as intern as well, and Mark fell in love with her when she had interrupted one of his and Derek's argument and said that it wasn't about beauty at all, it was about you. It was about hating the you that you should love.

And Derek had grinned at her and asked if she knew that personally.

Addison had laughed and he had felt his heart break.

Derek and Addison went 'steady' for the rest of their internship and residency and then married the year after they started working at the same hospital (Mark had been offered a position at the same hospital but he hadn't accepted… it would have crushed him.) Mark was the best man.

The next year Derek asked whether he was ever planning on settling down, to 'stop being the ladies man,' and Mark hadn't answered. There was only one person he wanted to settle with and if he told Derek that it would lead to uncomfortable and unanswerable questions.

(Weekly, he and Addison met for coffee. At times he couldn't bear to live.)

The next year Derek and Addison announced they were going to be parents. Mark knew now he had to move on.

Three months later, he and Derek were getting drunk, mourning a life that would never be. After dropping Derek off, he went to the hospital. He held Addy's hand and whispered in her ear, everything will be okay.

(His heart was being held together by tape, and it was getting worn and losing its stick.)

Addison asked him several months into the next year if Derek was having an affair. He said no, of course not. Don't be silly. Then asked Derek and Derek said no, definitely not. And Mark had known Derek for years and was grateful he wasn't lying. He didn't want to have to punch him (or kill him).

Derek said he wouldn't be home for Christmas, told Mark to keep Addison company; it wasn't like he had anyone else to spend Christmas with. Mark had agreed (how could he not?) And he and Addison had kissed under mistletoe.

It wasn't a kiss between friends.

And afterwards, Addison hadn't spoken to him for months.

(One of the pieces of tape around his heart broke.)

Then there had been a hospital Christmas party and they had ended up making out in a dark corner. If Mark had turned his head to the side he could have seen Derek.

He hadn't known whether he was grateful or not that Derek wouldn't have been able to see them.

Derek asked him after a few weeks if he thought Addison was having an affair. Mark replied she wouldn't, and couldn't look him in the eye. Derek believed him; they had been friends for years.

Then it happened, Derek and Addison had a fight. A big one. And Derek had stormed out, and Addison had called him: Mark, what's wrong with my marriage?

He had kissed her and figured that was answer enough.

Then they had sex, and it was sweaty and hot and as good as he had dreamed (for years) it would be and then Derek walked into the room.

And that friendship was over.

But he had Addy and he held her every night for two months. Then she left. And he let her go (because she was everything he wanted and he wanted to give her everything she wanted).

Then he went after her, because Derek had walked in and hadn't cared and he realized Addison was his now.

(Except she wasn't.)

Then, after another… he didn't know how long (because it wasn't like he was living anymore), the phone rang. It was Addison, of course, because he had someone (his girlfriend? Hooker? Fuck buddy?) Wrapped around him and she would pick this time to call, and she had cried: was it only ever punishment? My second chance? Does he hate me that much?

Do you?

He didn't really answer, but he relocated his practice to Seattle. To her. And Derek told him he wasn't welcome.

Addison had hugged him and kissed him and loved him and was everything that was perfect in the world.

Derek told him he wasn't welcome.

(Except he was.)

I always loved the idea that to Mark, Addison was it, the person he had wanted forever and would want forever. And then I heard they had lived together for two months and that Mark and Derek had grown up together and this idea evolved from there. I haven't actually seen the third season so some details may be wrong.

Beta'd by Seventhave