Chapter 4: All I Want, All I'm Asking For
A/N: So I've gotten a lot of reviews asking me to update, and honestly I marked this story as completed and was finished. I actually started writing another Meredith based story about her childhood but I never expected to have so many people ask me to update again. So I decided to write one more chapter. I hope you enjoy it. Please review :)
Then slowly, over time, everything changes. And you're no longer this young thing, and you don't believe in fairytales and "perfect" isn't in your vocabulary.
-Addison Forbes Montgomery
Addison paced the floor of her office, a pile of papers on her desk that she couldn't force herself to read through yet.
She didn't understand why she was having so much trouble. She had excepted the facts already. She had even done this before.
You have to have the courage to accept change.
Derek and Addison had gotten married over eleven years ago. After meeting in med school and dating for the duration, the two young lovers got married in the spring. It was a big, beautiful wedding in the city, a cathedral with stained glass windows that went from floor to ceiling.
Being a Forbes- Montgomery, the wedding was in all major New York publications from the Times to the New Yorker. The wedding was something she had dreamed of as a child, and it had been even better than her dreams.
Addison had her long hair pulled back in a waterfall of curls. She wore an elegant Vera Wang dress, a white lace over vintage silk with a train that traveled behind her. The dress had a simple sweetheart neckline and a plunging, open back. Pearl buttons trailed down the back to the end of the train. She had a veil hand embroidered with the same pace as the dress. Derek's mother Carolyn had cried when she saw her daughter in law.
Their first dance had been to 'Waiting for a girl like you' by Foreigner. Derek had secretly been taking ballroom dancing classes for weeks so he could surprise her. He didn't dance in public but he wanted to for her. He would do anything for her.
It's more than a touch or a word we say
Only in dreams could it be this way
When you love someone
Yeah, really love someone
Now, I know it's right
From the moment I wake up till deep in the night
There's no where on earth that I'd rather be
Than holding you, tenderly
I've been waiting for a girl like you
To come into my life
I've been waiting for a girl like you
A love that will survive
Their wedding cake was huge, but it had to be with all the people it had to feed. It was a molten chocolate with layers of fresh raspberries between every layer, coated in a chocolate Ganesh. The top layer, the one the couple would take home and keep in their freezer until their first anniversary was a red velvet the color of her hair. As a surprise, Derek had the wedding vows he wrote for her in a plastic bag that the baker had placed inside the cake before frosting it.
She always loved romantic gestures and she couldn't think of a better one than the one she would give him today.
She uncapped a black pen from the cup holder on her desk, it was inscribed with her name. She signed and initialed, her heart hurting a little more after each stroke the black ink left.
Sign. Print. Initial.
She made dinner reservations at the Archfield. With no surgeries scheduled she left early, driving to the trailer in the woods to pack her things.
Addison knew she loved this man. She put up with his crap for years. He ignored her, she cheated and he left. Addison Forbes Montgomery, a girl who grew up on the Upper East Side and has been wearing designer labels since she was born, she lived in a trailer in the woods for this man.
There was nothing she wouldn't do for Derek. He was a good man who deserved to be happy.
She sat on the bed in her hotel room, her feet rubbing against the plush carpet before sliding her feet into her louboutins. She smoothed out her pencil skirt, checking her makeup one more time before grabbing her purse and phone.
Derek was waiting for her in the lobby when she got off the elevator, his dark curls in stark contrast to the crisp white shirt he was wearing. He had a crook in his nose from when he broke it after a motorcycle crash when they were in med school. "You look beautiful Addison." He told her, greeting her with a kiss on her cheek.
His presence didn't make her heart flutter in her chest like it used to.
He opened the door for her, and pulled out her chair. He had always been a gentleman, being raised in a house with five women would do that.
They exchanged please tell small talk over dinner, reminiscing about the early days of their love affair when neither could imagine loving anyone more.
Dinner was over and so was a bottle of their most expensive red wine. She knew she had to rip it off like a bandaid.
She stood in front of the man she loved with all her heart. His piercing blue eyes watching the tears fall from hers. "I want you to be happy Derek. I have loved you from the moment your wingman Mark introduced us." She laughed, and so did he. "Derek I. . . I want a divorce. We tried to make it work but I want us both to be happy and that's somethings you can't force." She spent her whole life watching Bizzy and the Captain deny that their marriage had fallen apart. It was something Addison and Archer swore they would never do. It was time to accept the inevitable.
She handed him the stack of papers she had faxed from New York. They said the same thing as the ones he served her with before they tried to make it work again. "All you have to do is sign."
He looked down at the papers, confusion clouding his features. "Are you sure Addie?"
She took a breadth to calm the shaking in her voice. "I'm sure, Der." She put her hand on his shoulder. "You're going to sign the papers and then you're going to find Meredith Grey and never let her go."
Addison Forbes Montgomery never imagined she would be pushing her husband into the arms of another woman but here she was. It was bittersweet accepting that this part of her life was over. Her marriage to Derek Shepherd was finished for good.
This chapter was done, but her story was not.
THE END