PICKING UP THE PIECES
Maddison fic. Addison tries to set up a new life for herself but there is one man she really misses. Mark heads over and he is in for a huge surprise.
Chapter Two – You Could Be Happy (Mark's POV)
I stirred slowly, and it was like waking from a beautiful dream. The last thing I could remember was falling asleep with Addison's lips lingering on mine, her body bare and beautiful in my arms. But as I went to kiss her head, my arms groped at nothing. My eyes opened slowly, still groggily, and I looked around. It was like an arrow through the heart when I realised she was gone.
It never occurred to me that she might be in the bathroom or just down the corridor or something. I knew straight away that I had lost her – again. I got out of my bed and walked across the hotel room in just my boxers. Then I saw it. On the table.
Mark
I am sorry that it had to end like this. I'm sorry that you and me didn't work. I know you're probably mad right now and all you can think is that I should have stayed with you, we could have worked this out, but we couldn't. You and me would never have worked. I'm not gonna tell you where I'm going, because I don't want you to come after me. I don't want to be Addison Montgomery-used-to-be-Shepherd, who had the perfect marriage until she had an affair, and even then she couldn't make it work with the one guy she ever really loved. I did love you, Mark, we both know that. But I need to try to stop. I need to go to a place where I can be Addison Montgomery, without any baggage. I want to live, Mark, really live.
Can you clean up the room a bit and check out for me before lunch time? I won't answer my cell phone, so please don't call me. I need to be free. I'm gonna miss you just as much as you miss me, I promise. And when I see you again we'll both smile and shake hands and say 'oh, yeah, I knew Dr Sloan a while back.' But we can't be Addison-and-Mark because we'd never be able to make it work. We're both too arrogant, too self centred and too ambitious. We'd never be what each other needed. And what I need is a new life, away from the memories.
Forever and always,
Your Addison.
P.S. I love you.
The last line she had crossed out violently with two thick pen strokes. I found my eyes were blurring. I could see that the paper she had written on was dotted with tear stains, but I couldn't understand. I couldn't understand why she would go. But she had gone. And there was nothing I could do about it.
You could be happy
And I won't know
But you weren't happy the day I
Watched you go
I picked up my cell phone from where Addison had tossed it onto the floor last night. It was tough, luckily, and it hadn't even turned itself off. I felt a lump rising in my throat as I looked at my background. It was me, Addison, Derek, Karev, Stevens and Grey with that famous athlete that we operated on after she was in a car crash, whilst pregnant. Derek fixed her head, Addison fixed her baby and I did plastics. We were all smiling so wide. I had my arm around Addison's waist and I was leaning into her. She was smiling and laughing and the look on her face was pure… beauty.
And all the things that I wish I
Had not said
Are played in loops til it's madness
In my head
There was something I didn't tell her last night. Between kisses, between holding her and between loving her, I never once stopped to tell her that I did. That I was in love with her, Addison Forbes Montgomery, and I had been in love with her since…well, forever. I loved Addison throughout her and Derek's marriage, though I never said anything. And I loved her way before that, as well. But I screwed up with her long before she got married, and after that everything was different. We went out first, Addison and I, before Derek even noticed her. But I messed her around. I cheated. And I have never regretted anything more.
"You see that chick?" I leant over and whispered to Derek, my lab partner and best friend. I was pointing to a red head at the front of the class, leant over her liver, dissecting it without blinking an eyelid.
"Yeah." Derek muttered back, that look in his eyes. "She's hot. Who is she?"
"Her name's Addison Montgomery. And she, my friend, is going to get a little bit of the future Doctor Sloan tonight."
Derek rolled his eyes. "Have you asked her out, even?"
I shrugged. "All in good time, mate, all in good time."
Derek chuckled lightly and Dr Foster, who was running the class, turned to us with an acid stare. We bent our heads back down to our work.
Is it too late to remind you
How we were?
Not our last days of silent
Screaming blur
Later that day, in the canteen, I slid into a seat, on a table of giggling girls. Right next to Addison Montgomery.
"Hey. Addison, isn't it?"
She turned to me and smiled. "Yeah. Mark, right?"
She knew my name! Across the canteen I flashed Derek a triumphant glance. The girls were all giggling and nudging each other, and I saw Addison look from me to them, as if she didn't know what to do. I just waited.
"Can we take a walk?" she asked, and picked up my sandwich. I nodded, and Derek was the focus of another of my looks. We both climbed out of our seats and stepped out of the canteen doors to walk outside across the plaza.
"So, what was it you wanted?" she asked, and she looked at me with a smile. Her smile - excuse the corny expression – melted me. I grinned back.
"I was wondering if you were doing anything tomorrow night. Derek – that's my friend – and a couple of the other guys are having a party at his place. I wondered if you wanted to come."
For a moment Addison looked as if she was going to say no. Slowly and discreetly I crossed my fingers. Then she laughed.
"You just crossed your fingers!" she said, laughter lightly up her bright blue eyes. I sprung my fingers apart.
"No I didn't!"
She put a hand on my shoulder. "You so did, Mark!" she laughed, "And…yeah. I'll come to the party. What time d'you wanna pick me up?"
"Uh – eight?"
"Eight sounds great."
"Bye, then, Addison." I said, heart pounding.
Again, she laughed. I didn't like this situation. There was a lot of laughing at Mark going on.
"Aren't you going to ask where I live?"
"Shit." I swore. "Where do you live?"
"Room 17C. I'll see you there, tomorrow, at eight, yeah?"
"Sure."
"Bye, Mark."
"See you, Addison."
And she walked away. And then I allowed myself a sigh of relief.
Most of what I remember
Makes me sure
I should have stopped you from walking
Out the door
We were so great together in med school. She was nineteen and I was twenty and we were young and intelligent and the whole world was going to back away and let us past. Everything seemed great. Until I screwed up, and she ran, crying, into Derek's arms. And then she never left them. Even when we slept together, back in New York, and Derek found us. She still belonged to him, because she went after to him to Seattle, and she would never have started the divorce. I knew that. She would never have done that. Even now, she was running away from her bad memories here, instead of embracing the future we could have had.
But she had no control over me. So I dialled her number, and I waited.
"Hi, this is Addison's phone, I'm unavailable at the moment but if you leave a message I will ring you back. Thank you. The tone's coming now." Beep.
I took a deep breath. "Hey Addie. It's me. I know you told me not to phone you, but I just had to say one last thing to you. I love you, Addie. And I have loved you since the day I asked you out at Harvard, and I crossed my fingers, and you saw. And I know I've screwed up a bunch of times after that, but please, I love you. And I want to make up for all the times I've screwed up. I don't care how much time you need by yourself. You can have a week, a month, a year, ten years. As long as you promise me that you will come back to me after that. As long as you tell me that I can have hope that we can have something again. Because I love you, Addison Forbes Montgomery, and I will love you forever. Bye."
You could be happy
I hope you are
You made me happier than I've been by far
I shocked myself, to be honest. Because that wasn't like me, to be real and honest about my feelings. But Addie and I had been playing these games now for months, where both of us pretended that what we felt didn't matter, and what we were doing meant nothing. But I knew it did. To me at least. So I had to let her know that I was only playing along in the game, and I didn't really mean the 'it's nothing's and 'couldn't care less's.
I lifted my shirt up off the floor, and pulled it on. Then I straightened the bed as good as I could and gathered together all my things, my discarded shoes and socks, my wallet and then I grabbed the keys. I was ready to lock up and leave when something caught my eye. Laid on the top of the dresser where she had kept her jewellery, was the snake pendant. The rubies gleamed back at me and I remembered what the man in Thailand had told me when I bought it – It keeps the one that you love closest to your heart. Whilst they have this you will always be with them. I had laughed. I hadn't bought it for the charm, but because when I imagined the rubies shining out from beside Addison's pale neck, contrasting with the red of her hair, my heart had sped up a bit. I checked the drawers one last time.
Somehow everything I own
Smells of you
And for the tiniest moment
It's all not true
In the final drawer, the bottom drawer, I found something I recognised. A blue shirt, that I recognised as mine straight away. How long had that been in here? I couldn't think when I had last worn it, and doubt crept into my mind as I began to think maybe it was someone else's. But then I remembered. The night she had called me from Seattle, the night her marriage ended. The night I walked out of the shower to find Derek in the room. I shook my head. I wouldn't think of that, not now.
So I took the shirt in one hand and fumbled with the lock of the door, shutting it behind me and closing the door on the memories that still lingered inside. I caught a whiff of something from the shirt, and I realised it was Dolce and Gabbana, Addison's perfume. I sighed. If I knew her perfume I was definitely in too deep to be safe. I took the keys in my hand and handed them in at the reception of the hotel, before heading out and getting in my car which I had left there overnight.
Do the things that you always
Wanted to
Without me there to hold you back
Don't think just do
Driving to Seattle Grace I thought about it. Where would she go? What would she do? She would probably get wherever it was she was going, get very drunk tonight and wake up tomorrow on her first day of work completely hung-over but still looking absolutely fabulous. She said she wanted to live, and I guessed she meant that she wanted to do things she'd never done before and to make the most of life. Would she meet someone nice there and get into a relationship? Would she pick someone up in a bar? I didn't honestly know, because I knew the old Addison. The Addison Montgomery-used-to-be-Shepherd, as she said herself.
I stopped in the SGH car park, and got out, locking the car. I walked into the lobby, and immediately saw Derek and Meredith, joined at the mouths as usual, stood by the waiting area. I sighed. Finally, when Derek had gone, I walked over to Meredith.
"Have you seen Callie? Or Miranda Bailey?" I asked.
She raised an eyebrow. "Why, Dr Sloan? Are you ok?"
I sighed, "I'm fine. Did you know Addison was leaving?"
She nodded understanding, as if she had suddenly realised something. "Yeah, I did. Don't know where she's gone, though. Wouldn't tell anyone, least of all any of us. Just said she wanted a new life."
I sighed, "Yeah. Do you know anyone who knows?"
She was concealing a smile. "You do care, then?"
"Of course I care!" I said heatedly.
"I didn't mean any offence. Just we had a bet going whether you and Dr Montgomery were just about… never mind." She trailed off, going red. "Anyway, I think Bailey knows. But I don't suppose she'll tell you. I thought Add- Dr Montgomery wanted to disappear."
"She did." I said grimly, "Thanks, Dr Grey."
"No problem." And she looked at me sadly and then was gone.
More than anything I want to
See you girl
Take a glorious bite out
Of the whole world
I walked up to Miranda Bailey.
"No, Sloan." She said, without even looking up from her files, "I don't know anything."
I put a hand on her arm to stop her. "Tell me, please." I said, hoping I didn't sound too desperate. Mark Sloan the man whore seemed to be slowly evaporating.
"I can't tell you." She said grimly, "She said you'd probably come asking and I wasn't to tell you anything. I'm not about to go back on that promise, Sloan, so unless you are going to threaten me with something I should go."
"Miranda, please!" I said, "I know I've been an ass, but…"
She chuckled dryly. "You certainly have. And finally she has a chance to get out, and I am not about to change that. Go, Sloan."
"Miranda…"
But she had walked away.
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