So I've picked this up again.
Sorry I've been so sluggish with this fic, Maddison are my fave but I was stuck for a lonlong long loooong time .
Hope you like this!
Derek looks like he did the time he told him he was proposing to his girlfriend at the time - blonde nurse, Camille something or other - shocked, a little skeptical, mostly horrified.
"Sorry?" he shakes his head. The man has good hair. He'll give him that.
"We're,uh." Addison gestures to herself, then to him, like she's explaining it to a toddler. "Getting married."
"Sorry." Derek says again, smiling now. "Come on, guys, I know you can do better than that, remember that one time with the nurses and the pages? That was actually funny. I can see right through you two by now - step up the game." he rolls his eyes, chuckling. "Hey, you guys want breakfast? My specialty - trout." he grins at Addison.
The guy is thicker than the Great Wall of China.
"Derek," he coughs. Addison looks like she might cry, hit him, or possibly do both.
"No trout? I thought you were less fancy than this one." he jerks his head affectionately at Addison. "You never told me why you're here."
"To tell you," Addison says, and he's pretty sure she's clenching her teeth. "We're getting married."
When she says it, we're getting married, she sees the exact moment it hits him.
He drops the keys he was fumbling with, turning slowly to face them, standing haplessly on the deck, Mark's arm tight around her waist.
"You two-" he squints a little. Like he can't see them. Or just doesn't want to.
And then he laughs. Really laughs, the kind of thigh slapping, eye watering laughter she hasn't heard from him in...years, probably.
"God, you're good. You really got me." he hiccups, scooping up his keys. "Come on, I'll even make you coffee."
Okay, so it hasn't hit him yet. She used to be better at reading him.
She exchanges incredulous glances with Mark - she'd imagined yelling, ranting, maybe punching. Not...this.
Whatever this is, because Derek is still chuckling as he walks into the trailer ahead of them, talking about how he has to be at the hospital in an hour and are they coming?
"Derek," she says finally, lingering against his door. "Turn around."
"What, Addie?" he frowns, already distracted by the smelly trout he's dropped into the sink. She wonders if he's ever really changed, or if she's the the one who outgrew their marriage.
She holds up her hand, the ring sparkling dully in the sunlight that filters through tiny windows.
"The hell is that?" he squints at her hand. Trust Mark Sloan to pick the most obnoxious ring he could find. Even Derek noticed it.
"Ring." Mark says helpfully, and she's reminded of herself asking the same question that morning.
But to her, it's not just a ring. It's the beginning of a new life, a fresh start, the license to be happy without the taint of guilt and regret.
It's not a just a ring. It's the end of them, the death knell for any chance he may have had (not that he wanted one) , the seed of doubt that will from now on always be in his mind.
Were DerekandAddison ever real? Or was it always AddisonandMark and Derektoostupidtonotice?
"Ring...wait, you two-" he points from one face to the other, one nervous and one amused.
"Yep," Mark says. "About that coffee..."
"Shut it, Mark." he says, feeling a strange numbness creeping up his legs as he turns to Addison, who is trying to melt into the wall. "You're pregnant, aren't you."
"You're pregnant, aren't you."
Well, the boy gets a point for being able to see into the past. About a year, actually.
"That's why you're doing this?" He's demanding, starting to pace in front of the sink.
He sort of wishes he'd take a minute to put that damn fish away before he starts flipping out. No wonder Addie was so pissy the whole time she lived here.
"I'm...no. I'm not." she squeaks, and he frowns. Addison Montgomery does not squeak. She yells, berates, puts down and sometimes bellows (and sometimes she screams, like she did last night...) but no, she does not squeak.
She has no reason to feel guilty now, she's done the time, she's let him hurt her back.
She doesn't have to think about his feelings now, she shouldn't be stumbling over his ego. She deserves to be happy.
"So why," Derek's saying now, gesturing like he used to in kindergarten when he got mad that he'd stolen the blue crayon. Never changes, this one.
" It wasn't a fling, Derek, you know that, it was real, we were-" she's pleading, her hands held out in the appeal he recognises too well from the last year in New York.
He gets the oddest urge to fabricate an excuse, duck out of this suffocating trailer with an apologetic smile, before he remembers this isn't a marital quarrel and he's no longer a voyeur. He's in this too.
"You know what he's like!" Derek yells.
Excuse me?
"He's committed to himself, surgery, and blondes with big boobs - his words, not mine - and you want to marry him? Are you insane?" Derek looks like he might laugh again.
"Married you, didn't she." he grunts, earning himself a glare from Addison and a dismissive look from Derek.
"Addison," Derek says, softly, and he feels suddenly uneasy. "Please. Think this through, I just want-"
"You want? No way. Derek, what you want is no longer my concern, so please , if you can, be happy for your best friend and you used to love of your life, and if you can't, well, for once-" she leans in close, and he enjoys seeing Derek flinch a little. "Shut. Up."
"And I have a surgery in forty minutes," she says, suddenly normal again. "Come on, Mark."
"You go," he says, looking at Derek's slouched form against the flimsy countertop. "I'll catch up to you."
They listen to the sounds of her car fade away, breathing in silence as rain starts to tap in earnest on the roof.
"Derek."
"What?"
"You could at least look at me,"
He watches him rip a knife through the fish's guts, flecking the sink with blood.
"Or not." he mutters.
There's a very long, very silent pause where Derek disembowels his fish, he tries not to gag on the smell, and Addison texts him twice to ask what happened.
Isn't she supposed to be driving? He reminds her of this fact and tosses his phone into his pocket.
Derek may be one of the most renowned neurosurgeons in the world, a brilliant scientist and almost as good looking as he is but sometimes the only way to make him see things is a good old kick up the ass. Fortunately, thirty five years of being his best friend means he is good at kicking.
"Shepherd, look at me," he says loudly, wrenching the dripping knife away from him and slamming him into the couch. (He did tell him to go to the gym more often. Of course, he doesn't listen.)
"Get out of my house," he snarls, trying to get up.
"I would, but you don't have one." he counters, and Derek concedes defeat as he looks around at his metal Twinkie house. (Nancypants never was tactful.)
"So you're going to sit there, and I'm going to talk." he orders, setting the knife down out of Derek's reach. "There's just one thing you need to do in order not to be a total dick. Butt out. She's not your business anymore. When you two were married , I ran interference, I defused your stupid fights, I never picked sides and I stood in for you while you were off making an idiot of yourself. You'll do the same for me."
He's staring at him openmouthed, looking very like the fish head eyeing him from the sink. "I-"
"Did I say you could talk?"
He shakes his head meekly.
"Good boy. Like your mom used to say - if you ain't got nothing nice to say-"
"Then don't say nothing at all." he finishes for him, and his mouth twitches. "But I was going to say something ...well, not nice, but not totally rude either."
"That'll be a refreshing change. Shoot."
"I'm not a dick."
"I beg to differ."
"Am not."
"Are too. You are a dick of epic proportions-" he stops quickly, realising what that sounded like.
Derek's eyebrows fly up into his hair. "Sloan, are you finally accepting that I -"
"Hell no." he says emphatically.
"You have no proof." he smirks, regaining his composure far too quickly for Mark's liking. He's not done yet.
"We could always just ask Addie," he says, and then he catches Derek's eye and they're laughing like that haven't in years, stomach-hurting, eye watering laughter that leaves them breathless and lost as to what they were laughing about in the first place.
"I missed you, Sloan." Derek gasps. "I'm sorry I was a ... dick."
"Are. Are a dick." he corrects, still raspy. "I'll cure you, don't worry."
"I'm not sure there is a cure." Derek says soberly.
"Opinion, per rectal, three times daily."
"So you're admitting that I have..."
..
An hour later they've managed to stow the fish in the freezer, crack several more jokes at each others expense, and he's convinced Derek into driving him to the hospital.
"Mark," he says suddenly as they're getting out of the beat up jeep he's embarrassed by."Don't hurt her."
"Wouldn't dream of it." he says, kicking at the tyre. "But thanks. For looking out for her."
"Really?"
"It's nice to have a friend," he says carefully, not sure how thin the ice is here. "To have a friend when your husband's being a jerk."
"Yeah," Derek says softly. "Guess it is."
"We okay?" he asks as they get off the elevator on the OR floor, feeling slightly ridiculous.
Derek shoves him hard as he heads down the corridor a step ahead of him. "You're such a woman."
"You're a woman, you-"
"You're talking to each other?" Addison gapes at them in front of the OR board. "Like, nicely?"
"We're friends," Derek says, pretending to be miffed.
"Maybe you two should get married." she snorts. "And I'll live in the trailer."
"When pigs fly." he laughs, dropping a kiss on her cheek. "Congratulations, Addie. Keep him in line."
"Thanks." she says, looking genuinely touched. "Really, Derek, you're taking it so well-"
"I wouldn't say well, because that-" he points at Mark's arm sliding around her waist. "That still creeps me out. But I'll get used to it."
"You better." he grins. "I intend to do a lot of it."
Derek suppresses a shudder as Torres comes bouncing over, her eyes drawn magnetically to the ring.
"Is that what I think it is?"
Review, pretty please?
Next update much sooner, I promise!