A/N: Well, the summer's started out pretty nicely. I've been spending about two hours every day working on my stuff, hence the new chapter. This is the last Addison-centric one... The next four will be Derek's point of view. I hope everyone's having a great summer and I really appreciate everyone who reads my stories. Just do me a favor, and if you enjoy, please leave a little review. I don't care if you just say, 'gee you suck. don't ever write anything again.' (okay, well, I might care just a little...) but my point is, I really like hearing from all of you who are reading and (hopefully) enjoying what I've written. end of shameless plug
I do have to give props to Gabrielle G. Stanton, Harry Werksman, and Stacy McKee for the brilliant dialogue that I borrowed (okay, stole) from 1x09 and 2x01. Just know that I only inserted two paragraphs to kind of paste everything together. You'll see.
That being said, please enjoy!
Chapter Four
"It's a small crime and I've got no excuse."
Shell-shocked-and-emotionally-unstable-Addison does what emotionally-unstable-Addison does best – she dyes her hair again.
She braved her short-lived pregnancy as a blonde and now there's a part of her that desperately needs to have red hair again. She almost feels that changing her hair color is like changing her identity. She wants to pretend that only stupid, blonde Addison would abort Mark's baby and intelligent redheaded Addison still has the perfect marriage. So she buys another cheap box of dye and smears it on her head, not knowing if she's crying because of the chemicals or if it was finally just time for it.
She goes shopping after she finishes her hair. Retail therapy is Addison's drug of choice.
…
She dips her fingers into the basin of water and makes the sign of the cross before she enters the church. She opens the door to the confession box and sits inside, her stomach churning and her hands shaking. "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," she mutters, crossing herself again. "It has been…" Addison thinks, "five years since my last confession."
"Tell me your sins, child," the priest she doesn't know says.
Addison takes a deep breath. "Umm… Well, I slept with my husband's best friend… Oh, and this morning I aborted his baby. The friend, not the husband." She fiddles with her rosary.
The priest blesses her and absolves her of her sins and tells her to say so many Hail Mary's and so many Our Father's, but she just nods and wishes that absolution was really that easy.
…
She isn't really sure how she knows where Mark went when he left his apartment last night. All she knows is that the perfume she smelled on his skin while they made love last night wasn't hers and, worse than that, she knows that she recognized it. There's also the simple fact that it doesn't take four hours to buy a onesie and a calendar, and it's so not like Mark to bring her presents unless he wants something or he's trying to make it up to her.
She's sitting silently on his bed, holding the shirt he wore last night in her lap, trying desperately to remember where she's smelled that perfume before when her phone rings and she clears the tears from her throat as she answers it.
Richard explains to her about the TTTS case and she almost tells him to find someone else before she suddenly remembers where the perfume came from. "Charlene…" she whispers indignantly, letting his shirt fall to the floor. She ignores Richard's concerned 'what?' and, for the first time in two months, Addison knows exactly what to do. "When will you need me?"
…
Addison thinks manicures are a total waste of time and she's sure that actually paying someone to paint plastic onto your fingernails is absolutely ridiculous. "Sav… I feel stupid."
"Oh, tosh," Savvy says to her left. "You just needed a day with your best friend before you go out to Seattle."
She rolls her eyes. "Sav, I've told you, this is work. I'll just take the divorce papers with me and if he wants to sign them…" She watches the manicurist file her nails.
Savvy reaches over and squeezes Addison's arm. "Addie…" she says gently. "I have a good feeling about this. You guys are meant to be together."
Addison shakes her head. "I don't know, Sav…"
"Hey. You guys are Addison-and-Derek. You're going to get through this."
She nods to agree with Savvy, but all she can think about are Derek's last words to her --- "We're not Derek-and-Addison anymore."
She's almost completely packed by the time Mark figures out where she is. He walks into her bedroom. "Hey. Where have you been? I've been trying to call you all day. Tried to call you so we could have lunch. Tried to call you so we could have dinner. Tried to call you so I'd know where you were."
"Yeah…" she says quietly, placing a pair of pink scrubs into her suitcase. "I went to confession this morning."
He raises an eyebrow. "Why? You don't go to confession."
"I go to confession." She shrugs. "Besides, I felt like I needed to. Then Savvy took me for a manicure." Addison moves past him and into her closet.
Mark grabs her free hand and studies her plastic fingernails. "You're a surgeon, Addison."
"They'll pop off in a week or so." She zips her garment bag.
"What are you doing?"
Addison shakes her head, folds a pair of pants, and lays them on top of her scrubs. "I'm packing." She busies herself with her shoes.
"I can see that. Where are you going?"
She tucks her hair behind her ears. "It's none of your business."
Mark catches her arm and pulls her around to face him. "Like hell it's not. Are you going to Seattle? To him?"
She nods. "Yeah. He's my husband."
"And what happens in April when the baby's born? How are you going to explain that, Addison?"
She breaks free of his grasp and rushes into her closet, pulling whatever's left off the hangers.
"What then?" He matches her stride for stride and blocks the closet door, trapping her inside. "What about the baby? What about our baby?"
"There is no baby," she says vehemently, pushing pass him.
"What are you saying?"
She throws the clothes on her bed and flings open another suitcase. "I'm not having the baby."
"What did you—" He stops. "Oh." Mark stares at her. "You had… Why?" he asks her breathlessly.
Addison stops folding the clothes and faces him. He looks so heartbroken and sad that she almost feels bad. "Where were you last night, Mark?"
"You know where I was," he argues. "You were right there beside me all night!"
"Where did you go when you left for God knows how long? I waited three and a half hours for you before I feel asleep on my futon couch. Where the hell were you?"
"Don't try to make this about me," he counters. "You aborted my baby." His eyes flash dangerously.
"I could smell her." Her voice is little more than a whisper and she absolutely hates how hurt he makes her sound. How weak and vulnerable she is around him. "She was all over you, did you know that?" She blinks back the tears and continues folding her clothes into the suitcase.
"Bullshit, Addison." He shakes his head. "You're looking for an easy way out of this and I'm not going to give it to you!"
She shakes her head exasperatedly. "I don't… Ugh!" She throws up her hands. "We're not having this conversation."
"No." He sits down on her bed. "You started it. Tell me my sins, O Most Holy One, who goes to mass on Christmas, Easter and when she aborts her lover's baby!"
Addison slams the suitcase closed, but doesn't say anything to him.
"You want to pass on some blame? Fine. You really want to do it this way? Then let's do it." He crosses his arms over his chest. "What do you want me to tell you?"
She bites her lip and takes a deep breath. "Tell me who it was, Mark. Tell me who makes you so—"
"Shit, Addison! It's you! It's always been you! I've always loved you!" He springs up and stands in front of her. "If you can't see that, if you really can't tell how I feel about you, then…" He shrugs. "I don't know what else to say to you."
"Why did—"
"No!" He cuts her off. "It's my turn now. Why did you abort our baby?"
"Who did you fuck last night?" She says before she can stop herself.
"This isn't about that, Addison!"
"It is!" She exclaims, stepping toward him. "It is about that, Mark. You can't keep it in your pants for four hours right after I told you I was pregnant. How were we supposed to raise a child? You're a man-whore, Mark. You always have been and you always will be. You knew I was married. You were at the wedding. Hell… You were Derek's best-fucking-man… I was hurting and going through a bad time in my marriage and you took advantage. You brought me lunch and bought me diamonds… And I chose to love you because loving you was almost like loving Derek. I made a mistake. That baby was a mistake. But you… You were the biggest mistake, Mark."
He stands in silence for a moment, letting her words sink to the very core of him. He clears his throat. "Well… I guess you should know that it was—"
"I know who it was, Mark," she mutters, exhausted. "I work with Charlene every day. She's stood beside me in the OR more times that I know. I'd know that cheap perfume anywhere."
"Why'd you ask?" he shoves his hands in his jacket pockets.
Addison shrugs. "I wanted to see if you'd admit what you did."
Mark rubs his chin. "So what now? What do we… I mean, what happens now?"
"I don't know." She shakes her head. "I think I go to Seattle and you stay here and… Maybe I'll be back."
"So what, I'm just supposed to wait here for you?"
"I'm still married, Mark." She takes a step toward him. "I'm not going to… I'm not going to stay if he won't love me anymore. But, if Derek—"
"He'll take you back," Mark sniffs. "Derek will take you back because that's the kind of guy he is. And you'll try to make things work. And maybe they will." He puts a hand on her cheek. "But if they don't…"
She closes her eyes and puts her hand on top of his. "Mark, please… Don't make this any harder for me than it already is."
"You know where to find me." He kisses the top of her head and heads out the door. He stops in the doorframe and turns toward her. "It was fun."
She puts her hands on her hips. "I'm still really pissed at you."
He laughs a little. "Yeah, well… You get to be. Love you, babe."
Addison watches him walk slowly down the stairs and out the front door of her brownstone before she sighs. "Yeah, I kind of love you, too."
…
As soon as she's made sure everything's packed, Addison calls Derek. She doesn't expect him to answer, so she's not a bit surprised when she gets his voicemail. "Derek," she starts, not quite how to continue. "It's me. It's Addison. Listen, I know you're still mad at me and I know that I deserve it, it's just… Just call me back when you get this, alright? We have a lot to talk about and I…" She takes a deep breath. "I miss you, Derek. Okay. Well, I guess I'll talk to you later. Bye." She can't say what she really wants to and it's that, more than anything that makes her cry.
…
Savvy goes with her to the airport the next morning and Addison pulls her into a tight embrace.
"You'll keep an eye on the brownstone for me?" Addison asks her.
"Of course," Savvy assures her.
Addison sighs. "And Mark…"
"I'll keep an eye on him, too, although I can't say I can control him as much as I can the brownstone."
"Thanks, Sav." Addison laughs and hugs her friend again. "I guess I'd better go."
Savvy nods. "Yeah."
"I'll see you?" Addison swallows her tears.
"Sooner rather than later?" She rests her chin on Addison's shoulder. "Go bring him home, Addie."
"I'm going to try, Sav…" Addison whispers. "I'm really going to try."
…
She isn't sure what she's going to say to him when she sees him. All she knows as she pulls into the parking lot of Seattle Grace Hospital is that she definitely hates the weather. She takes the black umbrella she bought from the airport and tucks it under her arm because even though it's not raining at this particular moment, the skies are heavy and she guesses that it will downpour before she gets back to her hotel room.
Addison checks her reflection once more in the rearview mirror and retouches her lipstick before she opens the car door and steps onto the wet pavement. She looks fabulous. Even Jetlagged-Addison is smart enough to know that she has to look drop dead gorgeous and just a tad dangerous, especially if her gut instinct is right.
She walks through the automatic doors and intends on asking the nurse at the desk where Richard Webber is but she stops short when she hears Derek say, "Me, too" to her right. She watches him help a tiny blonde girl into her coat and her suspicions are confirmed. Addison raises an eyebrow and stares at him and eventually, his eyes meet hers and the smile drops from his face. She forces her white knuckle grip on her umbrella to loosen and she struts over to him, silently ecstatic that she chose to wear her highest black heels. She towers over the girl. Derek touches the girl's arm and calls her Meredith and all Addison can think is that there aren't enough 'sorrys' in the world to fix them both right now. But at the same time, she feels incredibly less guilty.
Addison puts a hand on her hip and smirks at him.
"Addison," he breathes. "What are you doing here?"
Meredith looks from one to the other, her utter confusion written on her face.
"Well, you'd know if you'd bothered to return any one of my phone calls." Addison finds the umbrella incredibly handy when it comes to gesturing. Plus, she figures, it probably makes her look even more intimidating than she already is. Derek grin drips with sarcasm and it's the look on his face that makes her extend her hand to Meredith with an upbeat "Hi." She smiles. "I'm Addison Shepherd."
Meredith looks at her, still obviously very confused. "Shepherd?" she repeats, almost as if she isn't sure she heard correctly.
She could be nice. She could explain what had happened. She could try to be friends with Meredith and she could try to be civil. But Addison decides she's had just about enough of all that. She takes a deep breath. "And you must be the woman who's been screwing my husband."
"Meredith," Derek starts, turning from Addison.
"No, I'm just…" Meredith backs slowly away from her. "I'm just going to go. You two… You two obviously have a lot to talk about and I… Yeah." She puts her head down and walks into the parking lot just as the thunder starts and Addison's downpour begins.
Derek runs a hand through his hair and walks in circles. He stops right in front of her and stares. "Addison, what are you doing here?" he spits.
She studies him. "Your hair's different."
"A lot of things are different."
"It's longer, I like it." She smoothes a stray piece by his ear. "It's very Russell Crowe."
He jerks his head away. "What are you doing here?"
"What are you doing here?" She returns, dropping the act. "You pick up and leave everything? Your house, your practice, your friends. You had a life in Manhattan."
"Had." He stresses.
She swallows hard. "And now you have a girlfriend in Seattle. She seems…" Addison searches for the right word. "sweet."
His eyes narrow. "The ice you're on? Thin." Derek moves past her.
"She's young. That whole wide-eyed, ooh-he's-a-brain-surgeon thing happening, but still," She faces him. "sweet, which is what you were going for, right? The Anti-Addison?" She wonders how many personas she's identified within herself over the last two months.
"If you came out here to try to win me back, you can forget about it."
Always with the selfishness, she thinks, and even though that was right on the top of the list, right after her abortion and the fact that Mark Sloan would always be a man-whore, she decides she absolutely cannot let him know about it. "I did," she admits breezily. "I flew all the way across the country to reminisce over wedding photos, get drunk, fall into bed, and make you realize you can't live without me." Her tone is laced with sarcasm and she can see the anger in Derek's eyes. "Relax. Derek, I'm here for work. I'm helming the TTTS case you guys admitted last week, and from Richard's briefing, I should be—"
"Richard knew you were coming out here?" Derek cuts her off.
"He asked me to come," Addison replied calmly. "Didn't he tell you?"
"No, he didn't!" Derek exclaims.
"Hmm, well…" She sighs. "Surprise." She walks past him, but leans back suddenly. "The hair though… You know I've always had a thing for Russell Crowe." Addison grins wickedly and decides that a sane person wouldn't enjoy hurting their husband this much.
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