A/N: These were written for a challenge at shonda_land on livejournal where we had to come up with 10 reasons why we ship a ship we ship. So each drabble corresponded to a reason. I think they all make sense without them. They just made a little more sense with them :)
His fingers traced lightly over the thin fabric of her pajamas as they lay together on the couch, a movie playing on the tv in the darkness of the room. He could hear her breathing growing deeper as her eyelids grew heavier.
He lifted a hand and moved the red tendrils away from her neck, exposing the soft, pale skin. His lips found the hollow behind her ear and she moaned softly.
"Derek," she whispered, and her hand fluttered toward him, but he whispered, "Shhhh" and let his other hand drift down her body, resting gently between her legs.
She moaned again as his fingers began to move over her, alternating between touches that were light and gentle and harder and faster.
She began to wriggle against him, arching her back and trying to roll over to get a better position. His other arm wrapped around her held her in place as his fingers finally slipped under her waistband and found what they were looking for.
She gasped as he slid a finger inside her.
"Derek," she whispered again, in that husky breathy tone that always instantly made him hard.
His thumb found her clit.
"Fuck ….." she groaned.
He grinned.
"If you insist …."
She was slumped over on a gurney, her knees drawn up to her chest, her head resting in her hands.
He sat down beside her, rubbing her back.
"Bad day?" he asked softly.
She looked up. He could see the traces of tears lining her eyelashes.
"Horrible day," she whispered. "Lost four already. Mom, baby, mom iand/i baby. And I have four more surgeries left. I can't do this."
"Yes, you can."
She shook her head miserably. "I don't think so."
He continued to rub her back.
An hour later, she stood in front of the white board, staring pointedly at her name, trying to will herself to think positively.
She felt a soft nudge on her shoulder and she turned.
Derek was holding a cup out to her.
"Juju," he said softly.
She smiled.
"You can do this, Addison," he said. "I believe in you."
She saved all four babies.
"You know you can tell me anything, don't you, Addison?" They were sitting on the floor in the living room of his apartment, surrounded by textbooks and sheets of notes (most written in purple flowery script) and empty containers of Chinese food.
She looked up, her glasses perched precariously at the end of her nose.
"Yes," she said, then peered back down at the paper in her hands.
"Then why don't you tell me why you don't want to go see your parents over Christmas?"
She tensed.
He noticed.
"Addison," he said softly.
"I don't want to talk about it."
"You know it won't change the way I feel about you, don't you?"
She looked up. He could tell from her expression that she didn't.
He put his own book down and scooted toward her, taking her hand in his. He looked her in the eyes and waited till she was looking back.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said.
This time he could tell she believed him.
She was nervous. She hadn't stopped fidgeting since they left Manhattan, her fingers constantly checking her hair, smoothing her skirt, fixing her lipstick.
"My mom is going to love you," he told her as they pulled into the driveway. "Just relax."
"I think I'm going to throw up," she murmured.
He held her hand as they walked to the door.
"Mom?" he called, opening the door, but there was no need. His mother, and all four sisters, were already gathered around, impatiently waiting.
He felt Addison's nails dig into his skin. He squeezed her hand, but there was no getting her to calm down.
"Mom, this is Addison," he said, and cringed inwardly when he saw his mother's eyes instantly narrow slightly.
"She hates me," Addison whispered to him a few hours later, the first time since they arrived that they weren't surrounded by a pile of Shepherd women.
Addison looked pale, and Derek could tell she was actually trembling.
He wrapped his arms around his girlfriend. Addison was right. His mom did hate her.
"No," he told her. "She loves you."
"What did you think?" he asked her that night as she lay in his arms, finally his wife.
"Of the wedding?" She titled her head to look at him, a lazy grin spread across her face.
"Of the song!" he said. "I was quite proud of that masterpiece."
She burst into giggles.
"I think that was the most horrible song I have ever heard," she laughed, then laughed more as she saw the expression on his face.
"Don't pout," she giggled.
He cocked an eyebrow at her. "Don't pout? You just told me you didn't like the song I wrote for you."
Addison shook her head, still giggling.
"No," she said. "I said it was horrible. But I was also going to say that I loved it."
"Thank you. For saving him," she said for probably the hundredth time that night.
Derek held out his shot glass and toasted her. "You don't have to keep thanking me."
Addison shook her head. "But I do. I know you don't like him. And you didn't have to do that …"
"Addison," he said. "Stop. You would have done it for me. It's what friends do."
"I didn't interrupt anything important, did I?"
He thought about the ring in his pocked, the hundreds of rose petals now in a trash can somewhere, the romantic evening he had imagined earlier.
He shook his head.
"Nothing important at all."
He found her in the last spot he ever expected to find her — on her hands and knees in the tiny bathroom of the trailer.
"What are you doing?" he said, staring down at her in amazement.
She looked up and scowled. "What do you think I'm doing?" she huffed. "We live in a trailer. A trailer, Derek! That is bad enough. I cannot live in a dirty trailer on top of that! And I sure as hell can't call for a maid!"
She glared at him and returned to her cleaning. He knew he should feel bad, but sometimes it was hard. All the hurt, all the resentment, all the bitterness. It made it hard to see anything else.
But this? This was so far from the life they had. So far from their home, their friends, their families.
Watching her scrub the floor furiously, he had a thought.
"Why did you do it?" he finally said, breaking the silent tension in the air.
She paused, but didn't look at him. "Do what?"
"Move out here. Stay out here."
He didn't expect an answer. Not a real one anyway. He expected a bitchy reply, maybe a fight.
For the second time in an hour, she surprised him.
She didn't look at him and her voice was quiet, but he heard her.
"Because I love you," she said simply. "And I would move anywhere for you."
"They call you McDreamy," she said suddenly, halfway through their second painfully awkward dinner together since she arrived in Seattle.
He looked up. He could see the glint in her eye.
"Yeah," he said, and then smiled. "Yeah, they do."
"I don't think you're so dreamy," she said, but she was smiling.
"You used to."
"No. I did not. Never."
"Oh, come on," he said. "When we first met. You totally thought I was dreamy. You turned bright red the first time I talked to you."
She rolled her eyes. "Don't flatter yourself."
"I don't have to. I remember it well."
"Well, I seem to remember making you blush when I kissed you at the bar that night with the tequila shots."
Derek laughed. "Yeah," he said. "You did."
Addison grinned. "Besides," she said. "There was no reason for me to think you were dreamy."
"There wasn't?" He cocked an eyebrow at her.
She shrugged. "I was better than you."
She laughed at that and took a sip of her wine. Derek did the same.
"Yeah," he murmured so she couldn't hear. "You were."
He stares at the phone in his hand. It would have been fourteen years today.
Fourteen years of fights and petty arguments, of awkward family Thanksgivings and painful trips to see family (mostly hers), of social engagements they didn't want to go to and fancy parties that made him uncomfortable, of tears over hurtful words and even more hurtful actions.
Fourteen years of cuddling on the couch and making love in the dark of night, of trying to find the best Christmas presents and searching for the best tree, of hearing her laugh and seeing her smile, of knowing she was there to come home to every night of his life.
He stares at the phone and wants to call her. But he doesn't know if he should.
He looks over at Meredith and the child in her arms, imagines a redheaded baby and Addison's smile.
He wonders again if he gave up too soon.
She declares to her therapist, just as she always does, that she is happy, that this is all she ever wanted, that having Sam (sort of) in her life and (the possibility of) a child are the only two things she needs.
She doesn't mention that when Sam touches her, she wishes it were someone else. She doesn't mention that the child she sees in her dreams will never be the one she ends up with (if she ends up with one at all).
Some things she can't tell, not her therapist, not her friends, not herself.
When her therapist asks her if she loves Sam, she says "Of course." When he asks her if she is iin love/i with Sam, she just smiles.
She knows he knows she's lying, but he will never know why. She will never tell him that she can't be in love with Sam because she's already (and always has been) in love with someone else.